THE   NEGRO   IN 
LITERATURE   AND   ART 


The  Negro 
in  Literature  and  Art 

in  the  United  State* 

BY 
BENJAMIN  BRAiWLEY 

Author  of  "A  Short  History  of  the  American  Negro" 


REVISED  EDITION 


NEW   YORK 

DUFFIELD  &  COMPANY 
1921 


Copyright,  1918, 1921,  by 
DUFFIELD   &   COMPANY 


TO   MY   FATHER 
EDWARD    MAcKNIGHT    BRAWLEY 

WITH   THANKS   FOR  SEVERE  TEACHING 
AND   STIMULATING   CRITICISM 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAOB 

PREFACE zi 

I.  THE  NEQBO  GENIUS 3 

II.  PHILLIS  WHEATLEY 10 

III.  PAUL  LAURENCE  D UNBAR 33 

IV.  CHARLES  W.  CHESNUTT 45 

V.  W.  £.  BURQHARDT  Du  Bois 50 

VI.  WILLIAM  STANLEY  BRAITHWAITE 66 

VII.  OTHER  WRITERS 66 

VIII.  ORATORS. — DOUGLASS  AND  WASHINGTON  ...  83 

IX.  THB  STAGE 97 

X.  PAINTERS.— HENRY  O.  TANNER 103 

XI.  SCULPTORS. — META  WABRICK  FULLER     .    .    .  112  • 

XII.  Music 126 

'XIII.  GENERAL  PROGRESS,  1918-1921 142 

XIV.   CHARLES  8.  GILPIN 156 

APPENDIX  : 

1.  THE  Ncono  IN  AMERICAN  FICTION   ....  105 

2.  STUDY  or  BIBLIOGRAPHY 180 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

CHARLES  8.  GILPIN  AS  "THE  EMPEROR  J£NEB  "Frontispiece 

PHILLIS  WHEATLEY Facing  p.  10 

PAUL  LAURENCE  DUNBAR "        34 

CHARLES  W.  CHEBNUTT "        46 

W.   E.   BUBQHARDT   D0   BoiB .         "  60 

WILLIAM  STANLEY  BRAITHWAITB 66 

HENRY  O.  TANNER 104 

META  WARRICK  FULLER 112 

HARRY  T.  BURLBIOH "       130 


PREFACE 

THE  present  volume  undertakes  to  treat 
somewhat  more  thoroughly  than  has  ever  be- 
fore been  attempted  the  achievement  of  the 
Negro  in  the  United  States  along  literary  and 
artistic  lines,  judging  this  by  absolute  rather 
than  by  partial  or  limited  standards.  The  work 
is  the  result  of  studies  hi  which  I  first  became 
interested  nearly  ten  years  ago.  In  1910  a 
booklet,  "The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art," 
appeared  in  Atlanta,  privately  printed.  The 
little  work  contained  only  sixty  pages.  The 
reception  accorded  it,  however,  was  even  more 
cordial  than  I  had  hoped  it  might  be,  and  the 
limited  edition  was  soon  exhausted.  Its  sub- 
stance, in  condensed  form,  was  used  in  1913 
as  the  last  chapter  of  "A  Short  History  of  the 
American  Negro,"  brought  out  by  the  Mac- 
millan  Co.  In  the  mean  tune,  however,  new 
books  and  magazine  articles  were  constantly 
appearing,  and  my  own  judgment  on  more  than 


Preface 

one  point  had  changed;  so  that  the  time  has 
seemed  ripe  for  a  more  intensive  review  of  the 
whole  field.  To  teachers  who  may  be  using 
the  history  as  a  text  I  hardly  need  to  say 
that  I  should  be  pleased  to  have  the  present 
work  supersede  anything  said  in  the  last  chap- 
ter of  that  volume. 

The  first  chapter,  and  those  on  Mr.  Braith- 
waite  and  Mrs.  Fuller,  originally  appeared  in 
the  Southern  Workman.  That  on  the  Stage 
was  a  contribution  to  the  Springfield  Repub- 
lican; and  the  supplementary  chapter  is  from 
the  Dial.  All  are  here  reprinted  with  the  kind 
consent  of  the  owners  of  those  periodicals. 
Much  of  the  quoted  matter  is  covered  by  copy- 
right. Thanks  are  especially  due  to  Mr.  Braith- 
waite  and  Mr.  J.  W.  Johnson  for  permission 
to  use  some  of  their  poems,  and  to  Dodd, 
Mead  &  Co.,  the  publishers  of  the  works  of 
Dunbar.  The  bibliography  is  quite  new.  It 
is  hoped  that  it  may  prove  of  service. 

BENJAMIN  BBAWLET. 

North  Cambridge,  August,  1917. 


THE    NEGRO    IN 
LITERATURE   AND    ART 


THE   NEGRO   GENIUS 

IN  his  lecture  on  "The  Poetic  Principle/'  in 
leading  down  to  his  definition  of  poetry, 
Edgar  Allan  Poe  has  called  attention  to  the 
three  faculties,  intellect,  feeling,  and  will,  and 
shown  that  poetry,  that  the  whole  realm  of 
aesthetics  in  fact,  is  concerned  primarily  and 
solely  with  the  second  of  these.  Does  it  satisfy 
a  sense  of  beautyf  This  is  his  sole  test  of  a 
poem  or  of  any  work  of  art,  the  aim  being 
neither  to  appeal  to  the  intellect  by  satisfying 
the  reason  or  inculcating  truth,  nor  to  appeal 
to  the  will  by  satisfying  the  moral  sense  or 
inculcating  duty. 
The  standard  has  often  been  criticised  as 

3 


4       The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

narrow;  yet  it  embodies  a  large  and  funda- 
mental element  of  truth.  If  in  connection  with 
it  we  study  the  Negro  we  shall  find  that  two 
things  are  observable.  One  is  that  any  dis- 
tinction so  far  won  by  a  member  of  the  race  in 
America  has  been  almost  always  in  some  one 
of  the  arts;  and  the  other  is  that  any  influence 
so  far  exerted  by  the  Negro  on  American  civ- 
ilization has  been  primarily  in  the  field  of 
aesthetics.  To  prove  the  point  we  may  refer 
to  a  long  line  of  beautiful  singers,  to  the  fervid 
oratory  of  Douglass,  to  the  sensuous  poetry  of 
Dunbur,  to  the  picturesque  style  of  DuBois, 
to  the  mysticism  of  the  paintings  of  Tanner, 
and  to  the  elemental  sculpture  of  Me  La  War- 
rick  Fuller.  Even  Booker  Washington,  most 
practical  of  Americans,  proves  the  point,  the 
distinguishing  qualities  of  his  speeches  being 
anecdote  and  brilliant  concrete  illustration. 

Everyone  must  have  observed  a  striking 
characteristic  of  the  homes  of  Negroes  of  the 
peasant  class  in  the  South.  The  instinct  for 
beauty  insists  upon  an  outlet,  and  if  one  can 
find  no  better  picture  he  will  paste  a  circus 
poster  or  a  flaring  advertisement  on  the  walls. 
Very  few  homes  have  not  at  least  a  geranium 


The  Negro  Genius  6 

on  the  windowsill  or  a  rosebush  in  the  garden. 
If  also  we  look  at  the  matter  conversely  we 
shall  find  that  those  things  which  are  most 
picturesque  make  to  the  Negro  the  readiest 
appeal.  Red  is  his  favorite  color  simply  be- 
cause it  is  the  most  pronounced  of  all  colors. 
Goethe's  "Faust"  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  a 
play  primarily  designed  for  the  galleries.  One 
never  sees  it  fail,  however,  that  in  any  Southern 
city  this  play  will  fill  the  gallery  with  the  so- 
called  lower  class  of  Negro  people,  who  would 
never  think  of  going  to  another  play  of  its 
class,  but  different;  and  the  applause  never 
leaves  one  in  doubt  as  to  the  reasons  for 
Goethe's  popularity.  It  is  the  suggestiveness 
of  the  love  scenes,  the  red  costume  of  Mephis- 
topheles,  the  electrical  effects,  and  the  rain  of 
fire  that  give  the  thrill  desired — all  pure  melo- 
drama of  course.  "Faust"  is  a  good  show  as 
well  as  a  good  play. 

In  some  of  our  communities  Negroes  are 
frequently  known  to  "get  happy"  in  church. 
Now  a  sermon  on  the  rule  of  faith  or  the  plan 
of  salvation  is  never  known  to  awaken  such 
ecstasy.  This  rather  accompanies  a  vivid  por- 
trayal of  the  beauties  of  heaven,  with  the 


6       The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

walls  of  jasper,  the  angels  with  palms  in  their 
hands,  and  (summum  bonum!)  the  feast  of  milk 
and  honey.  And  just  here  is  the  dilemma  so 
often  faced  by  the  occupants  of  pulpits  in 
Negro  churches.  Do  the  people  want  scholarly 
training?  Very  often  the  cultured  preacher 
will  be  inclined  to  answer  in  the  negative.  Do 
they  want  rant  and  shouting?  Such  a  standard 
fails  at  once  to  satisfy  the  ever-increasing  in- 
telligence of  the  audience  itself.  The  trouble 
is  that  the  educated  minister  too  often  leaves 
out  of  account  the  basic  psychology  of  his 
audience.  That  preacher  who  will  ultimately 
be  the  most  successful  with  a  Negro  congre- 
gation will  be  the  one  who  to  scholarship 
and  culture  can  best  join  brilliant  imagination 
and  fervid  rhetorical  expression.  When  all  of 
these  qualities  are  brought  together  in  their 
finest  proportion  the  effect  is  irresistible. 

Gathering  up  the  threads  of  our  discussion 
so  far,  we  find  that  there  is  constant  striving 
on  the  part  of  the  Negro  for  beautiful  or  strik- 
ing effect,  that  those  things  which  are  most 
picturesque  make  the  readiest  appeal  to  his 
nature,  and  that  in  the  sphere  of  religion  he 
receives  with  most  appreciation  those  dis- 


The  Negro  Genius  7 

courses  which  are  most  imaginative  in  quality. 
In  short,  so  far  as  the  last  point  is  concerned, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  assert  that  the  Negro 
is  thrilled  not  so  much  by  the  moral  as  by  the 
artistic  and  pictorial  elements  hi  religion. 

But  there  is  something  deeper  than  the  sen- 
suousness  of  beauty  that  makes  for  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  Negro  hi  the  realm  of  the  arts, 
and  that  is  the  soul  of  the  race.  The  wail  of 
the  old  melodies  and  the  plaintive  quality  that 
is  ever  present  hi  the  Negro  voice  are  but  the 
reflection  of  a  background  of  tragedy.  No 
race  can  rise  to  the  greatest  heights  of  art 
until  it  has  yearned  and  suffered.  The  Rus- 
sians are  a  case  in  point.  Such  has  been  their 
background  in  oppression  and  striving  that 
their  literature  and  art  are  to-day  marked  by 
an  unmistakable  note  of  power.  The  same 
future  beckons  to  the  American  Negro.  There 
is  something  very  elemental  about  the  heart 
of  the  race,  something  that  finds  its  origin  in 
the  African  forest,  in  the  sighing  of  the  night- 
wind,  and  in  the  falling  of  the  stars.  There  is 
something  grim  and  stern  about  it  all,  too, 
something  that  speaks  of  the  lash,  of  the  child 
torn  from  its  mother's  bosom,  of  the  dead  body 


8       The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

riddled   with   bullets   and   swinging  all   night 
from  a  limb  by  the  roadside. 

So  far  we  have  elaborated  a  theory.  Let 
us  not  be  misunderstood.  We  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  the  Negro  can  not  rise  to  great  dis- 
tinction in  any  sphere  other  than  the  arts. 
He  has  already  made  a  noteworthy  beginning 
in  pure  scholarship  and  invention;  especially 
have  some  of  the  younger  men  done  brilliant 
work  in  science.  We  do  mean  to  say,  however, 
that  every  race  has  its  peculiar  genius,  and  that, 
so  far  as  we  can  at  present  judge,  the  Negro,  with 
all  his  manual  labor,  is  destined  to  reach  his 
greatest  heights  in  the  field  of  the  artistic. 
But  the  impulse  needs  to  be  watched.  Roman- 
ticism very  soon  becomes  unhealthy.  The 
Negro  has  great  gifts  of  voice  and  ear  and 
soul;  but  so  far  much  of  his  talent  has  not 
soared  above  the  stage  of  vaudeville.  This  is 
due  most  largely  of  course  to  economic  in- 
stability. It  is  the  call  of  patriotism,  how- 
ever, that  America  should  realize  that  the 
Negro  has  peculiar  gifts  which  need  all  possible 
cultivation  and  which  will  some  day  add  to 
the  glory  of  the  country.  Already  his  music 
is  recognized  as  the  modt  distinctive  that  the 


The  Negro  Genius  9 

United  States  has  yet  produced.  The  possi- 
bilities of  the  race  in  literature  and  oratory,  hi 
sculpture  and  painting,  are  illimitable. 

Along  some  such  lines  as  those  just  indi- 
cated it  will  be  the  aim  of  the  following  pages 
to  study  the  achievement  of  the  Negro  in  the 
United  States  of  America.  First  we  shall 
consider  in  order  five  representative  writers 
who  have  been  most  constantly  guided  by 
standards  of  literary  excellence.  We  shall  then 
pass  on  to  others  whose  literary  work  has  been 
noteworthy,  and  to  those  who  have  risen  above 
the  crowd  in  oratory,  painting,  sculpture,  or 
music.  We  shall  constantly  have  to  remember 
that  those  here  remarked  are  only  a  few  of 
the  many  who  have  longed  and  striven  for 
artistic  excellence.  Some  have  pressed  on  to 
the  goal  of  their  ambition;  but  no  one  can  give 
the  number  of  those  who,  under  hard  conditions, 
have  yearned  and  died  in  silence. 


n 

PUILLIS  WHEATLEY 

ON  one  of  the  slave  ships  that  came  to 
the  harbor  of  Boston  in  the  year  1761 
was  a  little  Negro  girl  of  very  delicate  figure. 
The  vessel  on  which  she  arrived  came  from 
Senegal.  With  her  dirty  face  and  unkempt 
hair  she  must  indeed  have  been  a  pitiable 
object  in  the  eyes  of  would-be  purchasers. 
The  hardships  of  the  voyage,  however,  had 
given  an  unusual  brightness  to  the  eye  of  the 
child,  and  at  least  one  woman  had  discernment 
enough  to  appreciate  her  real  worth.  Mrs. 
Susannah  Wheatley,  wife  of  John  Wheatley, 
a  tailor,  desired  to  possess  a  girl  whom  she 
might  train  to  be  a  special  servant  for  her  de- 
clining years,  as  the  slaves  already  in  her 
home  were  advanced  in  age  and  growing  feeble. 
Attracted  by  the  gentle  demeanor  of  the  child 
in  question,  she  bought  her,  took  her  home, 

and  gave  her  the  name  of  Phillis.    When  the 

10 


FIIILLI8   WHEATLEY 


Phillis  Wheatley  11 

young  slave  became  known  to  the  world  it 
was  customary  for  her  to  use  also  the  name 
of  the  family  to  which  she  belonged.  She 
always  spelled  her  Christian  name  P-h-i-1-l-i-s. 

Phillis  Wheatley  was  born  very  probably  in 
1753.  The  poem  on  Whitefield  published  in 
1770  said  on  the  title-page  that  she  was  seven- 
teen years  old.  When  she  came  to  Boston  she 
was  shedding  her  front  teeth.  Her  memory  of 
her  childhood  in  Africa  was  always  vague. 
She  knew  only  that  her  mother  poured  out 
water  before  the  rising  sun.  This  was  probably 
a  rite  of  heathen  worship. 

Mrs.  Wheatley  was  a  woman  of  unusual  re- 
finement. Her  home  was  well  known  to  the 
people  of  fashion  and  culture  in  Boston,  and 
King  Street  in  which  she  lived  was  then  as 
noted  for  its  residences  as  it  is  now,  under  the 
name  of  State  Street,  famous  for  its  commercial 
and  banking  houses.  When  Phillis  entered 
the  Wheatley  home  the  family  consisted  of 
four  persons,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wheatley,  their 
son  Nathaniel,  and  their  daughter  Mary. 
Nathaniel  and  Mary  were  twins,  born  May  4, 
1743.  Mrs.  Wheatley  was  also  the  mother  of 
three  other  children,  Sarah,  John,  and  Susan- 


12     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

nah;  but  all  of  these  died  in  early  youth. 
Mary  Wheatley,  accordingly,  was  the  only 
daughter  of  the  family  that  Phillis  knew  to 
any  extent,  and  she  was  eighteen  years  old 
when  her  mother  brought  the  child  to  the  house, 
that  is,  just  a  little  more  than  ten  years  older 
than  Phillis. 

In  her  new  home  the  girl  showed  signs  of 
remarkable  talent.  Her  childish  desire  for 
expression  found  an  outlet  in  the  figures  which 
she  drew  with  charcoal  or  chalk  on  the  walls 
of  the  house.  Mrs.  Wheatley  and  her  daughter 
became  so  interested  in  the  ease  with  which 
she  assimilated  knowledge  that  they  began  to 
teach  her.  Within  sixteen  months  from  the 
time  of  her  arrival  in  Boston  Phillis  was  able 
to  read  fluently  the  most  difficult  parts  of  the 
Bible.  From  the  first  her  mistress  strove  to 
cultivate  in  every  possible  way  her  naturally 
pious  disposition,  and  diligently  gave  her  in- 
struction in  the  Scriptures  and  in  morals. 
In  course  of  time,  thanks  especially  to  the 
teaching  of  Mary  Wheatley,  the  learning  of 
the  young  student  came  to  consist  of  a  little 
astronomy,  some  ancient  and  modern  geog- 
raphy, a  little  ancient  history,  a  fair  knowledge 


PhiUis  Wheatley  13 

of  the  Bible,  and  a  thoroughly  appreciative 
acquaintance  with  the  most  important  Latin 
classics,  especially  the  works  of  Virgil  and 
Ovid.  She  was  proud  of  the  fact  that  Terence 
was  at  least  of  African  birth.  She  became  pro- 
ficient hi  grammar,  developing  a  conception  of 
style  from  practice  rather  than  from  theory. 
Pope's  translation  of  Homer  was  her  favorite 
English  classic.  If  in  the  light  of  twentieth 
century  opportunity  and  methods  these  at- 
tainments seem  in  no  wise  remarkable,  one 
must  remember  the  disadvantages  under  which 
not  only  Phillis  Wheatley,  but  all  the  women 
of  her  tune,  labored;  and  recall  that  in  any 
case  her  attainments  would  have  marked  her 
as  one  of  the  most  highly  educated  young 
women  in  Boston. 

While  Phillis  was  trying  to  make  the  most 
of  her  tune  with  her  studies,  she  was  also  seek- 
ing to  develop  herself  in  other  ways.  She 
had  not  been  studying  long  before  she  began 
to  feel  that  she  too  would  like  to  make  verses. 
Alexander  Pope  was  still  an  important  force 
in  English  literature,  and  the  young  student 
became  his  ready  pupil.  She  was  about  four- 
teen years  old  when  she  seriously  began  to 


14     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

cultivate  her  poetic  talent;  and  one  of  the 
very  earliest,  and  from  every  standpoint  one 
of  the  most  interesting  of  her  efforts  is  the 
pathetic  little  juvenile  poem,  "On  Being 
Brought  from  Africa  to  America:" 

Twas  mercy  brought  me  from  my  pagan  land, 
Taught  my  benighted  soul  to  understand 
That  there's  a  God — that  there's  a  Saviour  too: 
Once  I  redemption  neither  sought  uor  knew. 
Some  view  our  sable  race  with  scornful  eye — 
"Their  colour  is  a  diabolic  dye." 
Remember,  Christians,  Negroes  black  as  Cain 
May  be  refined,  and  join  th'  angelic  train. 

Meanwhile,  the  life  of  Phillis  was  altogether 
different  from  that  of  the  other  slaves  of  the 
household.  No  hard  labor  was  required  of 
her,  though  she  did  the  lighter  work,  such  as 
dusting  a  room  or  polishing  a  table.  Gradually 
she  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  daughter  and 
companion  rather  than  as  a  slave.  As  she 
wrote  poetry,  more  and  more  she  proved  to 
have  a  talent  for  writing  occasional  verse. 
Whenever  any  unusual  event,  such  as  a  death, 
occurred  in  any  family  of  the  circle  of  Mrs. 
Wheatley's  acquaintance,  she  would  write 
lines  on  the  same.  She  thus  came  to  be  re- 


Phillis  Wheatley  Id 

garde d  as  "a  kind  of  poet-laureate  in  the 
domestic  circles  of  Boston."  She  was  frequently 
invited  to  the  homes  of  people  to  whom  Mrs. 
Wheatley  had  introduced  her,  and  was  re- 
garded with  peculiar  interest  and  esteem,  on 
account  both  of  her  singular  position  and  her 
lovable  nature.  In  her  own  room  at  home 
Phillis  was  specially  permitted  to  have  heat 
and  a  light,  because  her  constitution  was  deli- 
cate, and  in  order  that  she  might  write  down 
her  thoughts  as  they  came  to  her,  rather  than 
trust  them  to  her  fickle  memory. 

Such  for  some  years  was  the  course  of  the 
life  of  Phillis  Wheatley.  The  year  1770  saw 
the  earliest  publication  of  one  of  her  poems. 
On  the  first  printed  page  of  this  edition  one 
might  read  the  following  announcement:  "A 
Poem,  By  Phillis,  a  Negro  Girl,  in  Boston,  On 
the  Death  of  the  Reverend  George  Whitefield." 
In  the  middle  of  the  page  is  a  quaint  represen- 
tation of  the  dead  man  in  his  coffin,  on  the 
top  of  which  one  might  with  difficulty  decipher, 
"G.  W.  Ob.  30  Sept.  1770,  Act.  56."  The 
poem  is  addressed  to  the  Countess  of  Hunt- 
ingdon, whom  Whitefield  had  served  as  chap- 
lain, and  to  the  orphan  children  of  Georgia 


16     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

whom  he  had  befriended.  It  takes  up  in  the 
original  less  than  four  pages  of  large  print.  It 
was  revised  for  the  1773  edition  of  the  poems. 

In  1771  the  first  real  sorrow  of  Phillis  Wheat- 
ley  came  to  her.  On  January  31st  Mary 
Wheatley  left  the  old  home  to  become  the  wife 
of  Rev.  John  Lathrop,  pastor  of  the  Second 
Church  in  Boston.  This  year  is  important  for 
another  event.  On  August  18th  "Phillis,  the 
servant  of  Mr.  Wheatley,"  became  a  communi- 
cant of  the  Old  South  Meeting  House  in  Boston. 
We  are  informed  that  "her  membership  in 
Old  South  was  an  exception  to  the  rule  that 
slaves  were  not  baptized  into  the  church."  At 
that  time  the  church  was  without  a  regular 
minister,  though  it  had  lately  received  the  ex- 
cellent teaching  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  Sewell. 

This  was  a  troublous  tune  in  the  history  of 
Boston.  Already  the  storm  of  the  Revolution 
was  gathering.  The  period  was  one  of  vexa- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  slaves  and  their  masters 
as  well  as  on  that  of  the  colonies  and  England. 
The  argument  on  the  side  of  the  slaves  was 
that,  as  the  colonies  were  still  English  terri- 
tory, they  were  technically  free,  Lord  Mans- 
field having  handed  down  the  decision  in  1772 


Phillis  Wheatley  17 

that  as  soon  as  a  slave  touched  the  soil  of 
England  he  became  free.  Certainly  Phillis 
must  have  been  a  girl  of  unusual  tact  to  be 
able  under  such  conditions  to  hold  so  securely 
the  esteem  and  affection  of  her  many  friends. 
About  this  time,  as  we  learn  from  her  cor- 
respondence, her  health  began  to  fail.  Almost 
all  of  her  letters  that  are  preserved  were  writ- 
ten to  Obour  Tanner,  a  friend  living  in  New- 
port, R.  I.  Just  when  the  two  young  women 
became  acquainted  is  not  known.  Obour 
Tanner  survived  until  the  fourth  decade  of 
the  next  century.  It  was  to  her,  then,  still  a 
young  woman,  that  on  July  19,  1772,  Phillis 
wrote  from  Boston  as  follows: 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND, — I  received  your  kind  epistle  a  few 
days  ago;  much  disappointed  to  hear  that  you  had  not 
received  my  answer  to  your  first  letter.  I  have  been  in 
a  very  poor  state  of  health  all  the  past  winter  and  spring, 
and  now  reside  in  the  country  for  the  benefit  of  its  more 
wholesome  air.  I  came  to  town  this  morning  to  spend  the 
Sabbath  with  my  master  and  mistress.  Let  me  be  inter- 
ested in  your  prayers  that  God  will  bless  to  me  the  means 
used  for  my  recovery,  if  agreeable  to  his  holy  will. 

By  the  spring  of  1773  the  condition  of  the 
health  of  Phillis  was  such  as  to  give  her  friends 


18     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

much  concern.  The  family  physician  advised 
that  she  try  the  air  of  the  sea.  As  Nathaniel 
Wheatley  was  just  then  going  to  England,  it 
was  decided  that  she  should  accompany  him. 
The  two  sailed  in  May.  The  poem,  "A  Fare- 
well to  America,"  is  dated  May  7,  1773.  It 
was  addressed  to  "S.  W.,"  that  is,  Mrs.  Wheat- 
ley.  Before  she  left  America,  Phillis  was 
formally  manumitted. 

The  poem  on  Whitefield  served  well  as  an 
introduction  to  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon. 
Through  the  influence  of  this  noblewoman 
Phillis  met  other  ladies,  and  for  the  summer  the 
child  of  the  wilderness  was  the  pet  of  the 
society  people  of  England.  Now  it  was  that 
a  peculiar  gift  of  Phillis  Wheatley  shone  to 
advantage.  To  the  recommendations  of  a 
strange  history,  ability  to  write  verses,  and 
the  influence  of  kind  friends,  she  added  the 
accomplishment  of  brilliant  conversation. 
Presents  were  showered  upon  her.  One  that 
has  been  preserved  is  a  copy  of  the  magnificent 
1770  Glasgow  folio  edition  of  "Paradise  Lost," 
given  to  her  by  Brook  Watson,  Lord  Mayor 
of  London.  This  book  is  now  in  the  library 
of  Harvard  University.  At  the  top  of  one  of 


Phillis  Wheatley  19 

the  first  pages,  in  the  handwriting  of  Phillis 
Wheatley,  are  these  words:  "Mr.  Brook  Wat- 
son to  Phillis  Wheatley,  London,  July,  1773." 
At  the  bottom  of  the  same  page,  in  the  hand- 
writing of  another,  are  these  words:  "This 
book  was  given  by  Brook  Watson  formerly 
Lord  Mayor  of  London  to  Phillis  Wheatley 
&  after  her  death  was  sold  in  payment  of  her 
husband's  debts.  It  is  now  presented  to  the 
Library  of  Harvard  University  at  Cambridge, 
by  Dudley  L.  Pickman  of  Salem.  March, 
1824." 

Phillis  had  not  arrived  in  England  at  the 
most  fashionable  season,  however.  The  ladies 
of  the  circle  of  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon 
desired  that  she  remain  long  enough  to  be 
presented  at  the  court  of  George  III.  An  acci- 
dent— the  illness  of  Mrs.  Wheatley — prevented 
the  introduction.  This  lady  longed  for  the 
presence  of  her  old  companion,  and  Phillis 
could  not  be  persuaded  to  delay  her  return. 
Before  she  went  back  to  Boston,  however,  ar- 
rangements were  made  for  the  publication  of 
her  volume,  "Poems  on  Various  Subjects,  Re- 
ligious and  Moral,"  of  which  more  must  be 
said.  While  the  book  does  not  of  course  con- 


20     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

tain  the  later  scattered  poems,  it  is  the  only 
collection  ever  brought  together  by  Phillis 
Wheatley,  and  the  book  by  which  she  is  known. 

The  visit  to  England  marked  the  highest 
point  in  the  career  of  the  young  author.  Her 
piety  and  faith  were  now  to  be  put  to  their 
severest  test,  and  her  noble  bearing  under 
hardship  and  disaster  must  forever  speak  to 
her  credit.  In  much  of  the  sorrow  that  came 
to  her  she  was  not  alone,  for  the  period  of  the 
Revolution  was  one  of  general  distress. 

Phillis  remained  hi  England  barely  four 
months.  In  October  she  was  back  in  Boston. 
That  she  was  little  improved  may  be  seen 
from  the  letter  to  Obour  Tanner,  bearing  date 
the  30th  of  this  month: 

I  hear  of  your  welfare  with  pleasure;  but  this  acquaints 
you  that  I  am  at  present  indisposed  by  a  cold,  and  since 
my  arrival  have  been  visited  by  the  asthma. 

A  postscript  to  this  letter  reads: 

The  young  man  by  whom  this  is  handed  to  you  seems 
to  be  a  very  clever  man,  knows  you  very  well,  and  is 
very  complaisant  and  agreeable. 

The  "young  man"  was  John  Peters,  after- 
wards to  be  her  husband. 


Phillis  Wheatley  21 

A  great  sorrow  came  to  Phillis  in  the  death 
on  March  3,  1774,  of  her  best  friend,  Mrs. 
Wheatley,  then  in  her  sixty-fifth  year.  How 
she  felt  about  this  event  is  best  set  forth  in 
her  own  words  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Obour 
Tanner  at  Newport  under  date  March  21, 
1774: 

DEAR  OBOUR, — I  received  your  obliging  letter  en- 
closed in  your  Reverend  Pastor's  and  handed  me  by  his 
sou.  I  have  lately  met  with  a  great  trial  in  the  death  of 
my  mistress;  let  us  imagine  the  loss  of  a  parent,  sister 
or  brother,  the  tenderness  of  all  were  united  hi  her.  I  was 
a  poor  little  outcast  and  a  stranger  when  she  took  me  hi; 
not  only  into  her  house,  but  I  presently  became  a  sharer 
in  her  most  tender  affections.  I  was  treated  by  her  more 
like  her  child  than  her  servant;  no  opportunity  was  left 
unimproved  of  giving  me  the  best  of  advice;  but  hi  terms 
how  tender!  how  engaging!  This  I  hope  ever  to  keep  hi 
remembrance.  Her  exemplary  life  was  a  greater  monitor 
than  all  her  precepts  and  instructions;  thus  we  may  ob- 
serve of  how  much  greater  force  example  is  than  instruc- 
tion. To  alleviate  our  sorrows  we  had  the  satisfaction 
to  see  her  depart  in  inexpressible  raptures,  earnest  long- 
ings, and  impatient  thirstings  for  the  upper  courts  of  the 
Lord.  Do,  my  dear  friend,  remember  me  and  this  family 
in  your  closet,  that  this  afflicting  dispensation  may  be 
sanctified  to  us.  I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  that  you  are 
indisposed,  but  hope  this  will  find  you  in  better  health. 
I  have  been  unwell  the  greater  part  of  the  winter,  but  am 
much  better  as  the  spring  approaches.  Pray  excuse  my 


12     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

not  writing  you  so  long  before,  for  I  have  been  so  busy 
lately  that  I  could  not  find  leisure.  I  shall  send  the  5 
books  you  wrote  for,  the  first  convenient  opportunity; 
if  you  want  more  they  shall  be  ready  for  you.  I  am  very 
affectionately  your  friend, 

PHILLIS  WHEATLEY. 

After  the  death  of  Mrs.  Wheatley  Phillis 
seems  not  to  have  lived  regularly  at  the  old 
home;  at  least  one  of  her  letters  written  in  1775 
was  sent  from  Providence.  For  Mr.  Wheatley 
the  house  must  have  been  a  sad  one;  his  daugh- 
ter was  married  and  living  in  her  own  home,  his 
son  was  living  abroad,  and  his  wife  was  dead. 
It  was  in  this  darkening  period  of  her  life, 
however,  that  a  very  pleasant  experience  came 
to  Phillis  Wheatley.  This  was  her  reception 
at  the  hands  of  George  Washington.  In  1775, 
while  the  siege  of  Boston  was  in  progress,  she 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  distinguished  soldier,  en- 
closing a  complimentary  poem.  Washington 
later  replied  as  follows: 

CAMBRIDGE,  Feb.  2,  1776. 

Miss  PHILLIS, — Your  favor  of  the  26th  of  October  did 
not  reach  my  hand  till  the  middle  of  December.  Time 
enough,  you  say,  to  have  given  an  answer  ere  this. 
Granted.  But  a  variety  of  important  occurrences  con- 
tinually interposing  to  distract  the  mind  and  to  withdraw 


Phillis  Wheatley  23 

the  attention,  I  hope,  will  apologize  for  the  delay  and 
plead  my  excuse  for  the  seeming,  but  not  real  neglect. 
I  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  your  polite  notice  of  me, 
in  the  elegant  lines  you  enclosed,  and  however  undeserving 
I  may  be  of  such  encomium  and  panegyric,  the  style  and 
manner  exhibit  a  striking  proof  of  your  poetical  talents, 
in  honor  of  which,  and  as  a  tribute  justly  due  to  you,  I 
would  have  published  the  poem,  had  I  not  been  apprehen- 
sive that  while  I  only  meant  to  give  the  world  this  new 
instance  of  your  genius,  I  might  have  incurred  the  im- 
putation of  vanity.  This  and  nothing  else  determined 
me  not  to  give  it  place  in  the  public  prints.  If  you  should 
ever  come  to  Cambridge  or  near  headquarters,  I  shall  be 
happy  to  see  a  person  so  favored  by  the  muses,  and  to 
whom  Nature  has  been  so  liberal  and  beneficent  in  her 
dispensations. 

I  am,  with  great  respect, 

Your  obedient  humble  servant, 
GEOROE  WASHINGTON. 

Not  long  afterwards  Phillis  accepted  the 
invitation  of  the  General  and  was  received  in 
Cambridge  with  marked  courtesy  by  Wash- 
ington and  his  officers. 

The  Wheatley  home  was  finally  broken  up 
by  the  death  of  Mr.  John  Wheatley,  March 
12,  1778,  at  the  age  of  seventy-two.  After 
this  event  Phillis  lived  for  a  short  time  with 
a  friend  of  Mrs.  Wheatley,  and  then  took  an 
apartment  and  lived  by  herself.  By  April  she 


24     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

had  yielded  to  the  blandishments  of  John 
Peters  sufficiently  to  be  persuaded  to  become 
his  wife.  This  man  is  variously  reported  to 
have  been  a  baker,  a  barber,  a  grocer,  a  doctor, 
and  a  lawyer.  With  all  of  these  professions 
and  occupations,  however,  he  seems  not  to 
have  possessed  the  ability  to  make  a  living. 
He  wore  a  wig,  sported  a  cane,  and  generally 
felt  himself  superior  to  labor.  Bereft  of  old 
friends  as  she  was,  however,  sick  and  lonely, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  when  love  and  care 
seemed  thus  to  present  themselves  the  heart 
of  the  woman  yielded.  It  was  not  long  before 
she  realized  that  she  was  married  to  a  ne'er- 
do-well  at  a  tune  when  even  an  industrious 
man  found  it  hard  to  make  a  living.  The 
course  of  the  Revolutionary  War  made  it 
more  and  more  difficult  for  people  to  secure 
the  bare  necessaries  of  life,  and  the  horrors 
of  Valley  Forge  were  but  an  aggravation  of 
the  general  distress.  The  year  was  further 
made  memorable  by  the  death  of  Mary  Wheat- 
ley,  Mrs.  Lathrop,  on  the  24th  of  September. 

When  Boston  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
British,  the  inhabitants  fled  in  all  directions, 
Mrs.  Peters  accompanied  her  husband  to  Wil- 


Phillis  Wheatley  26 

niiiigton,  Mass.,  where  she  suffered  much 
from  poverty.  After  the  evacuationof  Boston  by 
the  British  troops,  she  returned  thither.  A 
niece  of  Mrs.  Wheatley,  whose  son  had  been 
slain  in  battle,  received  her  under  her  own 
roof.  This  woman  was  a  widow,  was  not 
wealthy,  and  kept  a  little  school  in  order  to 
support  herself.  Mrs.  Peters  and  the  two 
children  whose  mother  she  had  become  re- 
mained with  her  for  six  weeks.  Then  Peters 
came  for  his  wife,  having  provided  an  apart- 
ment for  her.  Just  before  her  departure  for 
Wilmington,  Mrs.  Peters  entrusted  her  papers 
to  a  daughter  of  the  lady  who  received  her  on 
her  return  from  that  place.  After  her  death 
these  were  demanded  by  Peters  as  the  property 
of  his  wife.  They  were  of  course  promptly 
given  to  him.  Some  years  afterwards  he  re- 
turned to  the  South,  and  nothing  is  known  of 
what  became  of  the  manuscripts. 

The  conduct  of  her  husband  estranged  Mrs. 
Peters  from  her  old  acquaintances,  and  her 
pride  kept  her  from  informing  them  of  her 
distress.  After  the  war,  however,  one  of  Mrs. 
Wheatley's  relatives  hunted  her  out  and  found 
that  her  two  children  were  dead,  and  that  a 


£6     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

third  that  had  been  born  was  sick.  This 
seems  to  have  been  in  the  winter  of  1783-84. 
Nathaniel  Wheatley,  who  had  been  living  hi 
London,  died  in  the  summer  of  1783.  In  1784 
John  Peters  suffered  imprisonment  in  jail. 
After  his  liberation  he  worked  as  a  journeyman 
baker,  later  attempted  to  practice  law,  and 
finally  pretended  to  be  a  physician.  His  wife, 
meanwhile,  earned  her  board  by  drudgery  in 
a  cheap  lodging-house  on  the  west  side  of  the 
town.  Her  disease  made  rapid  progress,  and 
she  died  December  5,  1784.  Her  last  baby 
died  and  was  buried  with  her.  No  one  of  her 
old  acquaintances  seems  to  have  known  of  her 
death.  On  the  Thursday  after  this  event, 
however,  the  following  notice  appeared  in  the 
Independent  Chronick: 

Last  Lord's  Day,  died  Mrs.  Phillis  Peters  (formerly 
Phillis  Wheatley),  aged  thirty-one,  known  to  the  world 
by  her  celebrated  miscellaneous  poems.  Her  funeral  is 
to  be  this  afternoon,  at  four  o'clock,  from  the  house  lately 
improved  by  Mr.  Todd,  nearly  opposite  Dr.  Bulfinch's  at 
West  Boston,  where  her  friends  and  acquaintances  are 
desired  to  attend. 

The  house  referred  to  was  situated  on  or 
near  the  present  site  of  the  Revere  House  in 


Phillis  Wkeatley  27 

Bowdoin  Square.    The  exact  site  of  the  grave 
of  Phillis  Wheatley  is  not  known. 

At  the  time  when  she  was  most  talked  about, 
Phillis  Wheatley  was  regarded  as  a  prodigy, 
appearing  as  she  did  at  a  time  when  the  achieve- 
ment of  the  Negro  in  literature  and  art  was 
still  negligible.  Her  vogue,  however,  was  more 
than  temporary,  and  the  1793,  1802,  and  1816 
editions  of  her  poems  found  ready  sale.  In 
the  early  years  of  the  last  century  her  verses 
were  frequently  to  be  found  hi  school  readers. 
From  the  first,  however,  there  were  those  who 
discounted  her  poetry.  Thomas  Jefferson,  for 
instance,  said  that  it  was  beneath  the  dignity 
of  criticism.  If  after  1816  interest  in  her  work 
declined,  it  was  greatly  revived  at  the  tune  of 
the  anti-slavery  agitation,  when  anything  in- 
dicating unusual  capacity  on  the  part  of  the 
Negro  was  received  with  eagerness.  When 
Margaretta  Matilda  Odell  of  Jamaica  Plain,  a 
descendant  of  the  Wheatley  family,  republished 
the  poems  with  a  memoir  in  1834,  there  was 
such  a  demand  for  the  book  that  two  more 
editions  were  called  for  within  the  next  three 
years.  For  a  variety  of  reasons,  especially  an 
increasing  race-consciousness  on  the  part  of 


28     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

the  Negro,  interest  in  her  work  has  greatly 
increased  within  the  last  decade,  and  as  copies 
of  early  editions  had  within  recent  years  be- 
come so  rare  as  to  be  practically  inaccessible, 
the  reprint  in  1909  of  the  volume  of  1773  by 
the  A.  M.  E.  Book  Concern  in  Philadelphia 
was  especially  welcome. 

Only  two  poems  written  by  Phillis  Wheatley 
after  her  marriage  are  hi  existence.  These  are 
"Liberty  and  Peace,"  and  "An  Elegy  Sacred 
to  the  Memory  of  Dr.  Samuel  Cooper."  Both 
were  published  in  1784.  Of  "Poems  on  Various 
Subjects,"  the  following  advertisement  appeared 
in  the  Boston  Gazette  for  January  24,  1774: 

This  Day  Published 

Adorn'd  with  an  Elegant  Engraving  of  the  Author, 
(Price  3s.  4d.    L.  M.  Bound,) 

POEMS 

on  various  subjects, — Religious  and  Moral, 
By  Phillis  Wheatley,  a  Negro  Girl. 

Sold  by  Mess's  Cox  &  Berry, 

at  their  Store,  in  King-Street,  Boston. 

N.  B. — The  subscribers  are  requested  to  apply  for  their 

copies. 

The  little  octavo  volume  of  124  pages  con- 
tains 39  poems.  One  of  these,  however,  must 


Phittia  Wheatley  29 

be  excluded  from  the  enumeration,  as  it  is 
simply  "A  Rebus  by  I.  B.,"  which  serves  as 
the  occasion  of  Phillis  Wheatley's  poem,  the 
answer  to  it.  Fourteen  of  the  poems  are 
elegiac,  and  at  least  six  others  are  occasional. 
Two  are  paraphrases  from  the  Bible.  We  are 
thus  left  with  sixteen  poems  to  represent  the 
best  that  Phillis  Wheatley  had  produced  by 
the  time  she  was  twenty  years  old.  One  of 
the  longest  of  these  is  "Niobe  in  Distress  for 
Her  Children  Slain  by  Apollo,  from  Ovid's 
Metamorphoses,  Book  VI,  and  from  a  View 
of  the  Painting  of  Mr.  Richard  Wilson." 
This  poem  contains  two  interesting  examples 
of  personification  (neither  of  which  seems  to 
be  drawn  from  Ovid),  "fate  portentous  whis- 
tling in  the  ah-,"  and  "the  feather 'd  vengeance 
quiv'ring  in  his  hands,"  though  the  point 
might  easily  be  made  that  these  are  little  more 
than  a  part  of  the  pseudo-classic  tradition. 
The  poem,  "To  S.  M.,  a  Young  African  Painter, 
on  seeing  his  works,"  was  addressed  to  Scipio 
Moorhead,  a  young  man  who  exhibited  some 
talent  for  drawing  and  who  was  a  servant  of 
the  Rev.  John  Moorhead  of  Boston.  From 
the  poem  we  should  infer  that  one  of  his  sub- 


SO     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

jects  was  the  story  of  Damon  and  Pythias. 
Of  prime  importance  are  the  two  or  three 
poems  of  autobiographical  interest.  We  have 
already  remarked  "On  Being  Brought  from 
Africa  to  America."  In  the  lines  addressed  to 
William,  Earl  of  Dartmouth,  the  young  woman 
spoke  again  from  her  personal  experience.  Im- 
portant also  in  this  connection  is  the  poem 
"On  Virtue,"  with  its  plea: 

Attend  me,  Virtue,  thro'  my  youthful  years! 
O  leave  me  not  to  the  false  joys  of  time! 
But  guide  my  steps  to  endless  life  and  bliss. 

One  would  suppose  that  Phillis  Wheatley  would 
make  of  "An  Hymn  to  Humanity"  a  fairly 
strong  piece  of  work.  It  is  typical  of  the  re- 
straint under  which  she  labored  that  this  is 
one  of  the  most  conventional  things  in  the 
volume.  All  critics  agree,  however,  that  the 
strongest  lines  in  the  book  are  those  entitled 
"On  Imagination."  This  effort  is  more  sus- 
tained than  the  others,  and  it  is  the  leading 
poem  that  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman  chose 
to  represent  Phillis  Wheatley  hi  his  "Library 
of  American  Literature."  The  following  lines 
are  representative  of  its  quality: 


Phillis  Wheatley  31 

Imagination!    Who  can  sing  thy  force? 
Or  who  describe  the  swiftness  of  thy  course? 
Soaring  through  air  to  find  the  bright  abode, 
Th'  empyreal  palace  of  the  thundering  God, 
We  on  thy  pinions  can  surpass  the  wind, 
And  leave  the  rolling  universe  behind: 
From  star  to  star  the  mental  optics  rove, 
Measure  the  skies,  and  range  the  realms  above; 
There  in  one  view  we  grasp  the  mighty  whole, 
Or  with  new  worlds  amaze  th'  unbounded  soul. 

Hardly  beyond  this  is  "Liberty  and  Peace," 
the  best  example  of  the  later  verse.  The  poem 
is  too  long  for  inclusion  here,  but  may  be 
found  in  Duyckinck's  "  Cyclopedia  of  American 
Literature,"  and  Heartman  and  Schomburg's 
collected  edition  of  the  Poems  and  Letters. 

It  is  unfortunate  that,  imitating  Pope, 
Phillis  Wheatley  more  than  once  fell  into  his 
pitfalls.  Her  diction — "fleecy  care,"  "vital 
breath,"  "feather'd  race" — is  distinctly  pseudo- 
classic.  The  construction  is  not  always  clear; 
for  instance,  hi  the  poem,  "To  Maecenas," 
there  are  three  distinct  references  to  Virgil, 
when  grammatically  the  poetess  seems  to  be 
speaking  of  three  different  men.  Then,  of 
course,  any  young  writer  working  under  the 
influence  of  Pope  and  his  school  would  feel  a 


32     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

sense  of  repression.  If  Phillis  Wheatley  had 
come  on  the  scene  forty  years  later,  when  the 
romantic  writers  had  given  a  new  tone  to 
English  poetry,  she  would  undoubtedly  have 
been  much  greater.  Even  as  it  was,  however, 
she  made  her  mark,  and  her  place  in  the  history 
of  American  literature,  though  not  a  large  one, 
is  secure. 

Hers  was  a  great  soul.  Her  ambition  knew 
no  bounds,  her  thirst  for  knowledge  was  in- 
satiable, and  she  triumphed  over  the  most  ad- 
verse circumstances.  A  child  of  the  wilderness 
and  a  slave,  by  her  grace  and  culture  she  satis- 
fied the  conventionalities  of  Boston  and  of 
England.  Her  brilliant  conversation  was 
equaled  only  by  her  modest  demeanor.  Every- 
thing about  her  was  refined.  More  and  more 
as  one  studies  her  life  he  becomes  aware  of  her 
sterling  Christian  character.  In  a  dark  day 
she  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  eternal  light,  and 
it  was  meet  that  the  first  Negro  woman  hi 
American  literature  should  be  one  of  unerring 
piety  and  the  highest  of  literary  ideals. 


Ill 

PAUL   LAURENCE   DUNBAR 

INCOMPARABLY  the  foremost  exponent  in 
verse  of  the  life  and  character  of  the  Negro 
people  has  been  Paul  Laurence  Dunbar.  This 
gifted  young  poet  represented  perfectly  the 
lyric  and  romantic  quality  of  the  race,  with 
its  moodiness,  its  abandon,  its  love  of  song, 
and  its  pathetic  irony,  and  his  career  has  been 
the  inspiration  of  thousands  of  the  young  men 
and  women  whose  problems  he  had  to  face, 
and  whose  aspirations  he  did  so  much  to 
realize. 

Dunbar  was  born  hi  Dayton,  Ohio,  June 
27,  1872.  His  parents  were  uneducated  but 
earnest  hard-working  people,  and  throughout 
his  life  the  love  of  the  poet  for  his  mother  was 
ever  a  dominating  factor.  From  very  early 
years  Dunbar  made  little  attempts  at  rhyming; 
but  what  he  afterwards  called  his  first  poetical 

33 


34     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

achievement  was  his  recitation  of  some  original 
verses  at  a  Sunday  School  Easter  celebration 
when  he  was  thirteen  years  old.  He  attended 
the  Steele  High  School  in  Dayton,  where  he 
was  the  only  Negro  student  in  his  class;  and 
by  reason  of  his  modest  and  yet  magnetic 
personality,  he  became  very  popular  with  his 
schoolmates.  In  his  second  year  he  became  a 
member  of  the  literary  society  of  the  school, 
afterwards  became  president  of  the  same,  as 
well  as  editor  of  The  High  School  Times,  a 
monthly  student  publication,  and  on  his  com- 
pletion of  the  course  in  1891  he  composed  the 
song  for  his  class.  Somewhat  irregularly  for 
the  next  two  or  three  years  Dunbar  continued 
his  studies,  but  he  never  had  the  advantage 
of  a  regular  college  education.  On  leaving  the 
high  school,  after  vainly  seeking  for  something 
better,  he  accepted  a  position  as  elevator  boy, 
working  for  four  dollars  a  week.  In  1893,  at  the 
World's  Columbian  Exposition  in  Chicago,  he 
was  given  a  position  by  Frederick  Douglass, 
who  was  in  charge  of  the  exhibit  from  Hayti. 
"Oak  and  Ivy"  appeared  in  1893,  and  "Ma- 
jors and  Minors"  in  1895.  These  little  books 
were  privately  printed;  Dunbar  had  to  assume 


PAUL   LAURENCB    DUNBAR 


Paul  Laurence  Dunbar  S6 

full  responsibility  for  selling  them,  and  not 
unnaturally  he  had  many  bitter  hours  of  dis- 
couragement. Asking  people  to  buy  his  verses 
grated  on  his  sensitive  nature,  and  he  once 
declared  to  a  friend  that  he  would  never  sell 
another  book.  Sometimes,  however,  he  suc- 
ceeded beyond  his  highest  hopes,  and  gradu- 
ally, with  the  assistance  of  friends,  chief  among 
whom  was  Dr.  H.  A.  Tobey,  of  Toledo,  the 
young  poet  came  into  notice  as  a  reader  of  his 
verses.  William  Dean  Ilowells  wrote  a  full- 
page  review  of  his  poems  in  the  issue  of  Harp- 
er's Weekly  that  contained  an  account  of  Will- 
iam McKinley's  first  nomination  for  the  presi- 
dency. Dunbar  was  now  fairly  launched  upon 
his  larger  fame,  and  "Lyrics  of  Lowly  Life," 
published  by  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.  in  1896,  in- 
troduced him  to  the  wider  reading  public. 
This  book  is  deservedly  the  poet's  best  known. 
It  contained  the  richest  work  of  his  youth 
and  was  really  never  surpassed.  In  1897  Dun- 
bar  enhanced  his  reputation  as  a  reader  of 
his  own  poems  by  a  visit  to  England.  About 
this  time  he  was  very  busy,  writing  numerous 
poems  and  magazine  articles,  and  meeting 
with  a  success  that  was  so  much  greater  than 


36     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

that  of  most  of  the  poets  of  the  day  that  it 
became  a  vogue.  In  October,  1897,  through 
the  influence  of  Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  he  secured 
employment  as  an  assistant  in  the  reading 
room  of  the  Library  of  Congress,  Washington; 
but  he  gave  up  this  position  after  a  year,  for 
the  confinement  and  his  late  work  at  night  on 
his  own  account  were  making  rapid  inroads 
upon  his  health.  On  March  6,  1898,  Dunbar 
was  married  to  Alice  Ruth  Moore,  of  New 
Orleans,  who  also  had  become  prominent  as 
a  writer.  Early  hi  1899  he  went  South,  visit- 
ing Tuskegee  and  other  schools,  and  giving 
many  readings.  Later  in  the  same  year  he 
went  to  Colorado  in  a  vain  search  for  health. 
Books  were  now  appearing  in  rapid  succession, 
short  story  collections  and  novels  as  well  as 
poems.  "The  Uncalled,"  written  in  London, 
reflected  the  poet's  thought  of  entering  the 
ministry.  It  was  followed  by  "The  Love  of 
Landry,"  a  Colorado  story;  "The  Fanatics," 
and  "The  Sport  of  the  Gods."  Collections  of 
short  stories  were,  "Folks  from  Dixie,"  "The 
Strength  of  Gideon,"  "  In  Old  Plantation  Days," 
and  "The  Heart  of  Happy  Hollow."  Volumes 
of  verse  were  "Lyrics  of  the  Hearthside," 


Paul  Laurence  Duribar  37 

"Lyrics  of  Love  and  Laughter,"  "Lyrics  of 
Sunshine  and  Shadow,"  as  well  as  several 
specially  illustrated  volumes.  Dunbar  bought 
a  home  in  Dayton,  where  he  lived  with  his 
mother.  His  last  years  were  a  record  of  sin- 
cere friendships  and  a  losing  fight  against 
disease.  He  died  February  9,  1906.  He  was 
only  thirty-three,  but  he  "had  existed  millions 
of  years." 

Unless  his  novels  are  considered  as  forming 
a  distinct  class,  Dunbar's  work  falls  naturally 
into  three  divisions:  the  poems  in  classic 
English,  those  hi  dialect,  and  the  stories  in 
prose.  It  was  his  work  in  the  Negro  dialect 
that  was  his  distinct  contribution  to  American 
literature.  That  this  was  not  his  desire  may 
be  seen  from  the  eight  lines  entitled,  "JThe 
Poet,"  hi  which  he  longed  for  success  in  the 
singing  of  his  "deeper  notes"  and  spoke  of  his 
dialect  as  "a  jingle  in  a  broken  tongue."  Any 
criticism  of  Dunbar's  classic  English  verse  will 
have  to  reckon  with  the  following  poems: 
"Ere  Sleep  Comes  Down  to  Soothe  the  Weary 
Eyes,"  "The  Poet  and  His  Song,"  "Life," 
"Promise  and  Fulfillment,"  "Ships  That  Pass 
in  the  Night,"  and  "October."  In  the  pure 


38     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

flow  of  lyrical  verse  the  poet  rarely  surpassed 
his  early  lines:* 

Ere  sleep  comes  down  to  soothe  the  weary  eyes, 

How  questioneth  the  soul  that  other  soul — 
The  inner  sense  which  neither  cheats  nor  lies, 

But  self  exposes  unto  self,  a  scroll 
Full  writ  with  all  life's  acts  unwise  or  wise, 

In  characters  indelible  and  known; 
So,  trembling  with  the  shock  of  sad  surprise, 

The  soul  doth  view  its  awful  self  alone, 
Ere  sleep   comes  down  to  soothe  the  weary  eyes. 

"The  Poet  and  his  Song"  is  also  distinguished 
for  its  simplicity  and  its  lyric  quality: 

A  song  is  but  a  little  thing, 
And  yet  what  joy  it  is  to  sing! 
In  hours  of  toil  it  gives  me  zest, 
And  when  at  eve  I  long  for  rest; 
When  cows  come  home  along  the  bars, 

And  in  the  fold  I  hear  the  bell, 
As  night,  the  Shepherd,  herds  his  stars, 

I  sing  my  song,  and  all  is  well. 


Sometimes  the  sun,  unkindly  hot, 
My  garden  makes  a  desert  spot; 

*As  stated  in  the  Preface,  we  are  under  obligations  to 
Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.  for  permission  to  use  the  quotations  from 
Dunbar.  These  are  covered  by  copyright  by  this  firm,  as 
follows:  "Ere  Sleep  Comes  Down  to  Soothe  the  Weary  Eyes," 
"The  Poet  and  his  Song,"  and  "Life,"  1896;  Lullaby,"  1899; 
and  "Compensation,"  1905. 


Paul  Laurence  Dunbar  89 

Sometimes  a  blight  upon  the  tree 
Takes  ail  the  fruit  away  from  me; 
And  then  with  throes  of  bitter  pain 

Rebellious  passions  rise  and  swell; 
But  life  is  more  than  fruit  or  grain, 

And  so  I  sing,  and  all  is  well. 

The  two  stanzas  entitled  "Life"  have  probably 
been  quoted  more  than  any  other  lines  written 
by  the  poet: 

A  crust  of  bread  and  a  corner  to  sleep  in, 
A  minute  to  smile  and  an  hour  to  weep  in, 
A  pint  of  joy  to  a  peck  of  trouble, 
And  never  a  laugh  but  the  moans  come  double; 
And  that  is  life. 

A  crust  and  a  corner  that  love  makes  precious, 
With  a  smile  to  warm  and  the  tears  to  refresh  us; 
And  joy  seems  sweeter  when  cares  come  after, 
And  a  moan  is  the  finest  of  foils  for  laughter; 
And  that  is  life. 

"Promise  and  Fulfillment"  was  especially  ad- 
mired by  Mrs.  Minnie  Madclern  Fiske,  who 
frequently  recited  it  with  never-failing  ap- 
plause. Of  the  poet's  own  reading  of  "Ships 
that  Pass  in  the  Night"  on  one  occasion, 
Brand  Whitlock  wrote:  "That  last  evening 
he  recited — oh!  what  a  voice  he  had — his 
'Ships  that  Pass  in  the  Night.'  I  can  hear 


40     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

him  now  and  see  the  expression  on  his  fine 
face  as  he  said,  'Passing!  Passing!'  It  was 
prophetic." 

Other  pieces,  no  more  distinguished  in 
poetic  quality,  are  of  special  biographical  in- 
terest. "Robert  Gould  Shaw"  was  the  ex- 
pression of  pessimism  as  to  the  Negro's  future 
in  America.  "To  Louise"  was  addressed  to 
the  young  daughter  of  Dr.  Tobey,  who,  on 
one  occasion,  when  the  poet  was  greatly  de- 
pressed, in  the  simple  way  of  a  child  cheered 
him  by  her  gift  of  a  rose.  "The  Monk's  Walk" 
reflects  the  poet's  thought  of  being  a  preacher. 
Finally,  there  is  the  swan  song,  "Compensa- 
tion," contributed  to  Lippincott's,  eight  ex- 
quisite lines: 

Because  I  had  loved  so  deeply, 

Because  I  had  loved  so  long, 
God  in  his  great  compassion 

Gave  me  the  gift  of  song. 

Because  I  have  loved  so  vainly, 
And  sung  with  such  faltering  breath, 

The  Master  in  infinite  mercy 
Offers  the  boon  of  Death. 

The  dialect  poems  suffer  by  quotation,  being 
artistic  primarily  as  wholes.  Of  these,  by  com- 


Paul  Laurence  Duribar  41 

mon  consent,  the  masterpiece  is,  "When  Ma- 
lindy  Sings,"  a  poem  inspired  by  the  singing 
of  the  poet's  mother.  Other  pieces  in  dialect 
that  have  proved  unusually  successful,  espe- 
cially as  readings,  are  "The  Rivals,"  "A  Co- 
quette Conquered,"  "The  01'  Tunes,"  "A 
Corn-Song,"  "When  de  Co'n  Pone's  Hot," 
"How  Lucy  Backslid,"  "The  Party,"  "At 
Candle-Lightin'  Time,"  "Angelina,"  "Whis- 
tling Sam,"  "Two  Little  Boots,"  and  "The 
Old  Front  Gate."  Almost  all  of  these  poems 
represent  the  true  humorist's  blending  of  hu- 
mor and  pathos,  and  all  of  them  exemplify 
the  delicate  and  sympathetic  irony  of  which 
Dunbar  was  such  a  master.  As  representative 
of  the  dialect  verse  at  its  best,  attention  might 
be  called  to  a  little  poem  that  was  included 
hi  the  illustrated  volume,  "  Candle-Lightin' 
Tune,"  but  that,  strangely  enough,  was  omitted 
from  both  of  the  larger  editions  of  the  poems, 
very  probably  because  the  title,  "Lullaby," 
was  used  more  than  once  by  the  poet: 

Kiver  up  yo'  haid,  my  little  lady, 

Hyeah  de  win'  a-blowin*  out  o*  do's, 
Don'  you  kick,  ner  projick  wid  de  comfo't, 

Leaa'n  fros  '11  bite  yo'  little  toea. 


42     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Shut  yo'  eyes,  an'  snuggle  up  to  mammy; 

Gi'  me  bofe  yo'  ban's,  I  hoi'  'em  tight; 
Don'  you  be  afeard,  an'  'raence  to  trimble 

Des  ez  soon  ez  I  blows  out  de  light. 

Angels  is  a-mindin'  you,  my  baby, 

Keepin'  off  de  Bad  Man  in  de  night. 
Whut  de  use  o'  bein'  skeered  o'  nuffin'? 

You  don'  fink  de  da'kness  gwine  to  bite? 
Whut  de  crackin'  soun'  you  hyeah  erroun'  you? — 

Lawsy,  chile,  you  tickles  me  to  defl — 
Dat's  de  man  what  brings  de  fros',  a-paintin' 

Picters  on  de  winder  wid  his  bref. 

Mammy  am'  afeard,  you  hyeah  huh  laughin'? 

Go  'way,  Mistah  Pros',  you  can't  come  in; 
Baby  ain'  erceivin'  folks  dia  evenin', 

Reckon  dat  you  '11  have  to  call  ag'in. 
Curl  yo'  little  toes  up  so,  my  'possum — 

Umph,  but  you's  a  cunnin'  one  fu'  true! — 
Go  to  sleep,  de  angels  is  a-watchin', 

An'  yo'  mammy's  mindin'  of  you,  too. 

The  short  stories  of  Dunbar  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  make  his  reputation,  even 
if  he  had  not  written  his  poems.  One  of  the 
best  technically  is  "  Jimsella,"  from  the  "Folks 
from  Dixie"  volume.  This  story  exhibits  the 
pathos  of  the  life  of  unskilled  Negroes  hi  the 
North,  and  the  leading  of  a  little  child.  In 
the  sureness  with  which  it  moves  to  its  con- 


Paul  Laurence  Dunbar  43 

elusion  it  is  a  beautiful  work  of  art.  "A  Family 
Feud"  shows  the  influence  of  an  old  servant 
in  a  wealthy  Kentucky  family.  In  similar 
vein  is  "Aunt  Tempo's  Triumph."  "The 
Walls  of  Jericho"  is  an  exposure  of  the  methods 
of  a  sensational  preacher.  Generally  these 
stories  attempt  no  keen  satire,  but  only  a 
faithful  portrayal  of  conditions  as  they  are, 
or,  hi  most  cases,  as  they  were  in  ante-bellum 
days.  Dunbar's  novels  are  generally  weaker 
than  his  short  stories,  though  "The  Sport  of 
the  Gods,"  because  of  its  study  of  a  definite 
phase  of  life,  rises  above  the  others.  Nor  are 
his  occasional  articles  especially  strong.  He 
was  eminently  a  lyric  poet.  By  his  graceful 
and  beautiful  verse  it  is  that  he  has  won  a 
distinct  place  hi  the  history  of  American  liter- 
ature. 

By  his  genius  Paul  Laurence  Dunbar  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  the  great,  the  wise, 
and  the  good.  His  bookcase  contained  many 
autograph  copies  of  the  works  of  distinguished 
contemporaries.  The  similarity  of  his  position 
hi  American  literature  to  that  of  Burns  hi 
English  has  frequently  been  pointed  out.  In 
our  own  time  he  most  readily  invites  comparison 


44     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

with  James  Whitcomb  Riley.  The  writings 
of  both  men  are  distinguished  by  infinite  tender- 
ness and  pathos.  But  above  all  worldly  fame, 
above  even  the  expression  of  a  struggling 
people's  heart,  was  the  poet's  own  striving  for 
the  unattainable.  There  was  something  heroic 
about  him  withal,  something  that  links  him 
with  Keats,  or,  in  this  latter  day,  with  Rupert 
Brooke  and  Alan  Seeger.  He  yearned  for  love, 
and  the  world  rushed  on;  then  he  smiled  at 
death  and  was  universally  loved. 


IV 

CHARLES  W.    CHEBNUTT 

CHARLES  WADDELL  CHESNUTT,  the 
\^J  best  known  novelist  and  short  story 
writer  of  the  race,  was  born  in  Cleveland,  Ohio, 
June  20,  1858.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  began 
to  teach  in  the  public  schools  of  North  Caro- 
lina, from  which  state  his  parents  had  gone  to 
Cleveland;  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-three  he 
became  principal  of  the  State  Normal  School 
at  Fayetteville.  In  1883  he  left  the  South, 
engaging  for  a  short  while  in  newspaper  work 
in  New  York  City,  but  going  soon  to  Cleve- 
land, where  he  worked  as  a  stenographer. 
He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  hi  1887. 

While  in  North  Carolina  Mr.  Chesnutt 
studied  to  good  purpose  the  dialect,  manners, 
and  superstitions  of  the  Negro  people  of  the 
state.  In  1887  he  began  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
the  series  of  stories  which  was  afterwards 

brought  together  in  the  volume  entitled,  "The 

45 


46     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Conjure  Woman."  This  book  was  published 
by  the  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.,  the  firm  which 
published  also  Mr.  Chesnutt's  other  collection 
of  stories  and  the  first  two  of  his  three  novels. 
"The  Wife  of  his  Youth,  and  Other  Stories 
of  the  Color-Line"  appeared  in  1899.  In  the 
same  year  appeared  a  compact  biography  of 
Frederick  Douglass,  a  contribution  to  the 
Beacon  Biographies  of  Eminent  Americans. 
Three  novels  have  since  appeared,  as  follows: 
"The  House  Behind  the  Cedars"  (1900); 
"The  Marrow  of  Tradition"  (1901);  and  "The 
Colonel's  Dream"(1905). 

Mr.  Chesnutt's  short  stories  are  not  all  of 
the  same  degree  of  excellence,  but  the  best 
ones  show  that  he  is  fully  master  of  the  short 
story  as  a  literary  form.  One  of  the  best  tech- 
nically is  "The  Bouquet."  This  is  a  story  of 
the  devotion  of  a  little  Negro  girl  to  her  white 
teacher,  and  shows  clearly  how  the  force  of 
Southern  prejudice  might  forbid  the  expression 
of  simple  love  not  ohly  in  a  representative 
home,  but  even  when  the  object  of  the  devo- 
tion is  borne  to  the  cemetery.  "The  Sheriff's 
Children"  is  a  tragic  tale  of  the  relations  of  a 
white  father  with  his  illegitimate  colored  son. 


CHARLES   W.   CHKSNUTT 


Charles  W.  Chesnutt  47 

Most  famous  of  all  these  stories,  however,  is 
"The  Wife  of  his  Youth,"  a  simple  work  of 
art  of  great  intensity.  It  is  a  tale  of  a  very 
fab*  colored  man  who,  just  before  the  Civil 
War,  by  the  aid  of  his  Negro  wife,  makes  his 
way  from  slavery  hi  Missouri  to  freedom  hi  a 
Northern  city,  Groveland  [Cleveland?].  After 
the  years  have  brought  to  him  business  suc- 
cess and  culture,  and  he  has  become  the 
acknowledged  leader  of  his  social  circle  and  the 
prospective  husband  of  a  very  attractive  young 
widow,  his  wife  suddenly  appears  on  the  scene. 
The  story  ends  with  Mr.  Ryder's^acknowl- 
edging  before  a  company  of  guests  the  wife  of 
his  youth.  Such  stories  as  these,  each  setting 
forth  a  certain  problem  and  working  it  out  to 
its  logical  conclusion,  reflect  great  credit  upon 
the  literary  skill  of  the  writer. 

Of  the  novels,  "The  House  Behind  the 
Cedars"  is  commonly  given  first  place.  In 
the  story  of  the  heroine,  Rena  Walden,  are 
treated  some  of  the  most  subtle  and  search- 
ing questions  raised  by  the  color-line.  Rena 
is  sought  hi  love  by  three  men,  George  Tryon, 
a  white  man,  whose  love  fails  when  put  to 
the  test;  Jeff  Warn,  a  coarse  and  brutal  mu- 


48    The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

latto,  and  Frank  Fowler,  a  devoted  young 
Negro,  who  makes  every  sacrifice  demanded 
by  love.  The  novel,  especially  in  its  last 
pages,  moves  with  an  intensity  that  is  an  un- 
mistakable sign  of  power.  It  is  Mr.  Ches- 
nutt's  most  sustained  treatment  of  the  subject 
for  which  he  has  become  best  known,  that  ig, 
the  delicate  and  tragic  situation  of  those  who 
live  on  the  border-line  of  the  races;  and  it  is 
the  best  work  of  fiction  yet  written  by  a  mem- 
ber of  the  race  hi  America.  In  "The  Marrow 
of  Tradition"  the  main  theme  is  the  relations 
of  two  women,  one  white  and  one  colored, 
whose  father,  the  same  white  man,  had  in 
time  been  married  to  the  mother  of  each. 
The  novel  touches  upon  almost  every  phase 
of  the  Negro  Problem.  It  is  a  powerful  plea, 
but  perhaps  too  much  a  novel  of  purpose  to 
satisfy  the  highest  standards  of  art.  The 
Wellington  of  the  story  is  very  evidently  Wil- 
mington, N.  C.,  and  the  book  was  written 
immediately  after  the  race  troubles  in  that  city 
in  1898.  "The  Colonel's  Dream"  is  a  sad 
story  of  the  failure  of  high  ideals.  Colonel 
Henry  French  is  a  man  who,  born  in  the  South, 
achieves  success  in  New  York  and  returns  to 


Charles  W.  Chesnutt  49 

his  old  home  for  a  little  vacation,  only  to  find 
himself  face  to  face  with  all  the  problem*  that 
one  meets  in  a  backward  Southern  town.  "He 
dreamed  of  a  regenerated  South,  filled  with 
thriving  industries,  and  thronged  with  a  pros- 
perous and  happy  people,  where  every  man, 
having  enough  for  his  needs,  was  willing  that 
every  other  man  should  have  the  same;  where 
law  and  order  should  prevail  unquestioned,  and 
where  every  man  could  enter,  through  the 
golden  door  of  hope,  the  field  of  opportunity, 
where  lay  the  prizes  of  life,  which  all  might 
have  an  equal  chance  to  win  or  lose."  Becom- 
ing interested  in  the  injustice  visited  upon  the 
Negroes  in  the  courts,  and  in  the  employment 
of  white  children  in  the  cotton-mills,  Colonel 
French  encounters  opposition  to  his  benevo- 
lent plans,  opposition  which  finally  sends  him 
back  to  New  York  defeated.  Mr.  Chesnutt 
writes  in  simple,  clear  English,  and  his  methods 
might  well  be  studied  by  younger  writers  who 
desire  to  treat,  in  the  guise  of  fiction,  the  many 
searching  questions  that  one  meets  to-day  in 
the  life  of  the  South. 


W.   E.   BURGHARDT  DUBOIS 

WILLIAM  EDWARD  BURGHARDT 
DUBOIS  was  born  February  23,  1868, 
at  Great  Barrington,  Mass.  He  received  the 
degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  at  Fisk  University 
in  1888,  the  same  degree  at  Harvard  in  1890, 
that  of  Master  of  Arts  at  Harvard  in  1891, 
and,  after  a  season  of  study  at  the  University 
of  Berlin,  received  also  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Philosophy  at  Harvard  in  1895,  his  thesis 
being  his  exhaustive  study,  "Suppression  of 
the  Slave-Trade."  Dr.  DuBois  taught  for  a 
brief  period  at  Wilberforce  University,  and  was 
also  for  a  time  an  assistant  and  fellow  in  Soci- 
ology at  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  pro- 
ducing in  1899  his  study,  "The  Philadelphia 
Negro."  In  1896  he  accepted  the  professor- 
ship of  History  and  Economics  at  Atlanta 
University,  the  position  which  he  left  in  1910 
to  become  Director  of  Publicity  and  Research 

for  the  National  Association  for  the  Advance- 
so 


W.   E.    DUnfillARDT  DU   DOI8 


W.  E.  Burghardt  DuB&is  61 

ment  of  Colored  People.  In  connection  with 
this  work  he  has  edited  the  Crisis  since  the 
beginning  of  that  publication.  He  has  made 
various  investigations,  frequently  for  the  na- 
tional government,  and  has  contributed  many 
sociological  studies  to  leading  magazines.  He 
has  been  the  moving  spirit  of  the  Atlanta 
Conference,  and  by  the  Studies  of  Negro 
Problems,  which  he  has  edited  at  Atlanta  Uni- 
versity, hejias  become  recognized  as  one_pf 
the  great  sociologists  of  the  day,  and  as  the 
man  who  more  than  anyone  else  has  given 
Q—  studies  relating  to  the 


Negro. 

Aside  from  his  more  technical  studies  (these 
including  the  masterly  little  book,  "The  Ne- 
gro," hi  Holt's  Home  University  Library 
Series),  Dr.  DuBois  has  written  three  books 
which  call  for  consideration  hi  a  review  of 
Negro  literature.  Of  these  one  is  a  biography, 
one  a  novel,  and  the  other  a  collection  of  essays. 
In  1909  was  published  "John  Brown,"  a  con- 
tribution to  the  series  of  American  Crisis 
Biographies.  The  subject  was  one  well  adapted 
to  treatment  at  the  hands  of  Dr.  DuBois,  and 
in  the  last  chapter,  "The  Legacy  of  John 


62     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Brown,"  he  has  shown  that  his  hero  has  a 
message  for  twentieth  century  America,  this: 
"The  cost  of  liberty  is  less  than  the  price  of 
repression."  "The  Quest  of  the  Silver  Fleece," 
the  novel,  appeared  in  1911.  This  story  has 
three  main  themes:  the  economic  position 
of  the  Negro  agricultural  laborer,  the  subsi- 
dizing of  a  certain  kind  of  Negro  schools,  and 
Negro  life  and  society  in  the  city  of  Washing- 
ton. The  book  employs  a  big  theme  in  its 
portrayal  of  the  power  of  King  Cotton  in 
both  high  and  lowly  life  in  the  Southland; 
but  its  tone  is  frequently  one  of  satire,  and  on 
the  whole  the  work  will  not  add  much  to  the 
already  established  reputation  of  the  author. 
The  third  book  really  appeared  before  either 
of  the  two  works  just  mentioned,  and  embodies 
the  best  work  of  the  author  in  his  most  highly 
idealistic  period.  In  1903  fourteen  essays, 
most  of  which  had  already  appeared  in  such 
magazines  as  the  Atlantic  and  the  World's 
Work,  were  brought  together  in  a  volume  en- 
titled, "The  Souls  of  Black  Folk."  The  re- 
markable style  of  this  book  has  made  it  the 
most  important  work  in  classic  English  yet 
written  by  a  Negro.  It  is  marked  by  all  the 


W.  E.  Burghardt  DuB&is          63 

arts  of  rhetoric,  especially  by  liquid  and  al- 
literative effects,  strong  antithesis,  frequent 
allusion,  and  poetic  suggestiveness.  The  color- 
line  is  "The  Veil,"  the  familiar  melodies,  the 
"Sorrow  Songs."  The  qualities  that  have  just 
been  remarked  will  be  observed  in  the  following 
paragraphs: 

I  have  seen  a  land  right  merry  with  the  sun,  where 
children  sing,  and  rolling  hills  lie  like  passioned  women 
wanton  with  harvest.  And  there  in  the  King's  Highway 
sat  and  sits  a  figure  veiled  and  bowed,  by  which  the  travel- 
er's footsteps  hasten  as  they  go.  On  the  tainted  air 
broods  fear.  Three  centuries'  thought  has  been  the  raising 
and  unveiling  of  that  bowed  human  heart,  and  now  behold 
a  century  new  for  the  duty  and  the  deed.  The  problem 
of  the  Twentieth  Century  is  the  problem  of  the  color-line. 

My  journey  was  done,  and  behind  me  lay  hill  and  dale, 
and  Life  and  Death.  How  shall  man  measure  Progress 
there  where  the  dark-faced  Josie  lies?  How  many  heart- 
fills  of  sorrow  shall  balance  a  bushel  of  wheat?  How 
hard  a  thing  is  life,  to  the  lowly,  and  yet  how  human  and 
real  I  And  all  this  life  and  love  and  strife  and  failure — 
is  it  the  twilight  of  nightfall  or  the  flush  of  some  faint- 
dawning  day? 

Thus  sadly  musing,  I  rode  to  Nashville  in  the  Jim  Crow 
car. 

I  sit  with  Shakespeare  and  he  winces  not.  Across  the 
color-line  I  move  arm  in  arm  with  Balzac  and  Dumas, 


64     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

where  smiling  men  and  welcoming  women  glide  in  gilded 
halls.  From  out  the  caves  of  evening  that  swing  between 
the  strong-limbed  earth  and  the  tracery  of  the  stars,  I 
summon  Aristotle  and  Aurelius  and  what  soul  I  will, 
and  they  all  come  graciously  with  no  scorn  nor  conde- 
scension. So,  wed  with  Truth,  I  dwell  above  the  Veil. 
Is  this  the  life  you  grudge  us,  O  knightly  America?  Is 
this  the  life  you  long  to  change  into  the  dull  red  hideous- 
ness  of  Georgia?  Are  you  so  afraid  lest  peering  from  this 
high  Pisgah,  between  Philistine  and  Amalekite,  we  sight 
the  Promised  Land? 

Where  merit  is  BO  even  and  the  standard 
of  performance  so  high,  one  hesitates  to  choose 
that  which  is  best.  "The  Dawn  of  Freedom" 
is  a  study  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau;  "Mr. 
Booker  T.  Washington  and  Others"  is  a  frank 
criticism  of  the  late  orator  and  leader;  "The 
Meaning  of  Progress"  is  a  story  of  life  in 
Tennessee,  told  with  infinite  pathos  by  one 
who  has  been  the  country  schoolmaster;  "The 
Training  of  Black  Men"  is  a  plea  for  liber- 
ally educated  leadership;  while  "The  Quest 
of  the  Golden  Fleece,"  like  one  or  two  related 
essays,  is  a  faithful  portrayal  of  life  in  the 
black  belt.  The  book,  as  a  whole,  is  a  powerful 
plea  for  justice  and  the  liberty  of  citizenship. 

W.  E.  Burghardt  DuBois  is  the  best  example 
that  has  so  far  appeared  of  the  combination 


W.  E.  Burghardt  DuBois  66 

of  high  scholarship  and  the  peculiarly  romantic 
temperament  of  the  Negro  race.  Beneath  all 
the  play  of  logic  and  statistic  beats  the  passion 
of  a  mighty  human  heart.  For  a  long  time 
he  was  criticised  as  aloof,  reserved,  unsym- 
pathetic; but  more  and  more,  as  the  years 
have  passed,  has  his  mission  become  clearer, 
his  love  for  his  people  stronger.  Forced  by 
the  pressure  of  circumstance,  gradually  has  he 
been  led  from  the  congenial  retreat  of  the 
scholar  into  the  arena  of  social  struggle;  but 
for  two  decades  he  has  remained  an  out- 
standing interpreter  of  the  spiritual  life  of 
his  people.  He  is  to-day  the  foremost  leader 
of  the  race  hi  America. 


VI 

WILLIAM   STANLEY   BRAITHWAITE 

THE  foremost  of  the  poets  of  the  race  at 
present  is  William  Stanley  Braithwaite, 
of  Boston.  Mr.  Braithwaite  is  not  only  the 
possessor  of  unusual  talent,  but  for  years  he 
has  worked  most  conscientiously  at  his  art 
and  taken  the  time  and  the  pains  to  master 
the  fundamentals  that  others  all  too  often  deem 
unimportant.  In  1904  he  published  a  small 
book  of  poems  entitled  "Lyrics  of  Life  and 
Love."  This  was  followed  four  years  later 
by  "The  House  of  Falling  Leaves."  Within 
recent  years  he  has  given  less  and  less  time 
to  his  own  verse,  becoming  more  and  more 
distinguished  as  a  critic  in  the  special  field  of 
American  poetry.  For  several  years  he  has 
been  a  regular  and  valued  contributor  of  liter- 
ary criticism  to  the  Boston  Evening  Transcript; 
he  has  had  verse  or  critical  essays  in  the 

Forum,  the  Century,  S&ibner's,  the  Atlantic, 

56 


WILLIAM   STANLEY    BHAITHWAITE 


William  Stanley  Braithwaite         67 

etc.;  and  in  1916  became  editor  of  the  new 
Poetry  Review  of  Cambridge.  He  has  collected 
and  edited  (publishing  chiefly  through  Bren- 
tano's)  "The  Book  of  Elizabethan  Verse," 
"The  Book  of  Georgian  Verse,"  and  "The  Book 
of  Restoration  Verse";  and  he  has  also  pub- 
lished the  "Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse" 
for  each  year  since  1913.  He  is  the  general 
editor  of  "The  Contemporary  American  Poets 
Series,"  which  is  projected  by  the  Poetry  Re- 
view Company,  and  which  will  be  issued  in 
twelve  little  books,  each  giving  a  sympathetic 
study  of  a  poet  of  the  day;  he  himself  is 
writing  the  volume  on  Edwin  Arlington  Robin- 
son; and  before  long  it  is  expected  that  a  novel 
will  appear  from  his  pen.  Very  recently  (1917) 
Mr.  Braithwaite  has  brought  together  in  a 
volume,  "The  Poetic  Year,"  the  series  of 
articles  which  he  contributed  to  the  Transcript 
hi  1916-17.  The  aim  was  in  the  form  of  con. 
versations  between  a  small  group  of  friends  to 
discuss  the  poetry  of  1916.  Says  he:  "There 
were  four  of  us  in  the  little  group,  and  our 
common  love  for  'the  art  of  poetry  suggested 
a  weekly  meeting  hi  the  grove  to  discuss  the 
books  we  had  all  agreed  upon  reading.  .  .  . 


68     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

I  made  up  my  mind  to  record  these  discussions, 
and  the  setting  as  well,  with  all  those  other 
touches  of  human  character  and  mood  which 
never  fail  to  enliven  and  give  color  to  the 
serious  business  of  art  and  life.  ...  I  gave 
fanciful  names  to  my  companions,  Greek  names 
which  I  am  persuaded  symbolized  the  spirit 
of  each.  There  was  nothing  Psyche  touched 
but  made  its  soul  apparent.  Her  wood-lore 
was  beautiful  and  thorough;  the  very  spirit 
of  flowers,  birds  and  trees  was  evoked  when 
she  went  among  them.  Our  other  companion 
of  her  sex  was  Cassandra,  and  we  gave  her  this 
name  not  because  her  forebodings  were  gloomy, 
but  merely  for  her  prophesying  disposition, 
which  was  always  building  air-castles.  The 
other  member  besides  myself  of  our  little  group 
was  Jason,  of  the  heroic  dreams  and  adventure- 
some spirit.  He  was  restless  in  the  bonds  of 
a  tranquillity  that  chafed  the  hidden  spirit  of 
his  being."  From  the  introduction  we  get 
something  of  the  critic's  own  aims  and  ideals: 
"The  conversational  scheme  of  the  book  may, 
or  may  not,  interest  some  readers.  Poetry  is 
a  human  thing,  and  it  is  tune  for  the  world — 
and  especially  our  part  of  the  world — to  re- 


William  Stanley  Braithwaite        59 

gard  it  as  belonging  to  the  people.  It  sprang 
from  the  folk,  and  passed,  when  culture  began 
to  flourish,  into  the  possession  of  a  class.  Now 
culture  is  passing  from  a  class  to  the  folk, 
and  with  it  poetry  is  returning  to  its  original 
possessors.  It  is  in  the  spirit  of  these  words 
that  we  discuss  the  poetry  of  the  year."  Em- 
phasis is  here  given  to  this  work  because  it 
is  the  sturdiest  achievement  of  Mr.  Braith- 
waite in  the  field  in  which  he  has  recently 
become  most  distinguished,  and  even  the  brief 
quotations  cited  are  sufficient  to  give  some  idea 
of  his  graceful,  suggestive  prose. 

In  a  review  of  this  writer's  poetry  we  have 
to  consider  especially  the  two  collections, 
"Lyrics  of  Life  and  Love,"  and  "The  House  of 
Falling  Leaves,"  and  the  poems  that  have  more 
recently  appeared  in  the  Atlantic,  Scribner's, 
and  other  magazines.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
before  very  long  he  will  publish  a  new  edition 
of  his  poems.  The  earlier  volumes  are  out  of 
print,  and  a  new  book  could  contain  the  best 
of  them,  as  well  as  what  has  appeared  more 
recently.  "Lyrics  of  Life  and  Love"  embodied 
the  best  of  the  poet's  early  work.  The  little 
book  contains  eighty  pages,  and  no  one  of  the 


60     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

lyrics  takes  up  more  than  two  pages,  twenty 
in  fact  being  exactly  eight  lines  in  length. 
This  appearance  of  fragility,  however,  is  a 
little  deceptive.  While  Keats  and  Shelley  are 
constantly  evident  as  the  models  in  technique, 
the  yearning  of  more  than  one  lyric  reflects 
the  deeper  romantic  temper.  The  bravado 
and  the  tenderness  of  the  old  poets  are  evident 
again  in  the  two  Christmas  pieces,  "Holly 
Berry  and  Mistletoe,"  and  "Yule-Song:  A 
Memory": 

The  trees  are  bare,  wild  flies  the  snow, 
Hearths  are  glowing,  hearts  are  merry — 

High  in  the  air  is  the  Mistletoe, 
Over  the  door  is  the  Holly  Berry. 

Never  have  care  how  the  winds  may  blow, 
Never  confess  the  revel  grows  weary — 

Yule  is  the  time  of  the  Mistletoe, 
Yule  is  the  time  of  the  Holly  Berry. 

December  comes,  snows  come, 
Comes  the  wintry  weather; 
Faces  from  away  come — 
Hearts  must  be  together. 
Down  the  stair-steps  of  the  hours 
Yule  leaps  the  hills  and  towers — 
Fill  the  bowl  and  hang  the  holly, 
Let  the  times  be  jolly. 


William  Stanley  Braithwaite         61 

"The  Watchers"  is  in  the  spirit  of  Kingsley's 
"The  Three  Fishers": 

Two  women  on  the  lone  wet  strand — 
(The  wind's  out  with  a  will  to  roam) 

The  waves  wage  war  on  rocks  and  sand, 
(And  a  ship  is  long  due  home.) 

The  sea  sprays  in  the  women's  eyes — 
(Hearts  can  writhe  like  the  sea's  wild  foam) 

Lower  descend  the  tempestuous  skies, 
(For  the  wind's  out  with  a  will  to  roam.) 

"0  daughter,  thine  eyes  be  better  than  mine," 
(The  waves  ascend  high  on  yonder  dome) 

"North  or  South  is  there  never  a  sign?" 
(And  a  ship  is  long  due  home.) 

They  watched  there  all  the  long  night  through— 
(The  wind's  out  with  a  will  to  roam) 

Wind  and  rain  and  sorrow  for  two — 
(And  heaven  on  the  long  reach  home,) 

The  second  volume  marked  a  decided  ad- 
vance in  technique.  When  we  remember  also 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  spirit,  with  its  love  of 
rhythm  and  imagery,  we  are  not  surprised  to 
find  here  an  appreciation  "To  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti."  Especially  has  the  poet  made  prog- 
ress in  the  handling  of  the  sonnet,  as  may 
be  seen  in  the  following: 


62     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

My  thoughts  go  marching  like  an  arm&d  host 

Out  of  the  city  of  silence,  guns  and  cars; 
Troop  after  troop  across  my  dreams  they  post 

To  the  invasion  of  the  wind  and  stars. 
O  brave  array  of  youth's  untamed  desire! 

With  thy  bold,  dauntless  captain  Hope  to  lead 
His  raw  recruits  to  Fate's  opposing  fire, 

And  up  the  walls  of  Circumstance  to  bleed. 
How  fares  the  expedition  in  the  end? 

When  this  my  heart  shall  have  old  age  for  king 
And  to  the  wars  no  further  troop  can  send, 

What  final  message  will  the  arm'stice  bring? 
The  host  gone  forth  in  youth  the  world  to  meet, 
In  age  returns— in  victory  or  defeat? 

Then  there  is  the  epilogue  with  its  heart-cry: 

Lord  of  the  mystic  star-blown  gleams 
Whose  sweet  compassion  lifts  my  dreams; 
Lord  of  life  in  the  lips  of  the  rose 
That  kiss  desire;    whence  Beauty  grows; 
Lord  of  the  power  inviolate 
That  keeps  immune  thy  seas  from  fate, 


Lord,  Very  God  of  these  works  of  thine, 
Hear  me,  I  beseech  thee,  most  divine! 

Within  very  recent  years  Mr.  Braithwaite 
has  attracted  unusual  attention  among  the 
discerning  by  a  new  note  of  mysticism  that 
has  crept  into  his  verse.  This  was  first  ob- 


William  Stanley  Braithwaite         63 

served  in  "Sandy  Star,"  that  appeared  in  the 
Atlantic  (July,  1909): 

No  more  from  out  the  sunset, 

No  more  across  the  foam, 
No  more  across  the  windy  hills 

Will  Sandy  Star  come  home. 

He  went  away  to  search  it, 
With  a  curse  upon  his  tongue, 

And  in  his  hands  the  staff  of  life 
Made  music  as  it  swung. 

I  wonder  if  he  found  it, 
And  knows  the  mystery  now: 

Our  Sandy  Star  who  went  away 
With  the  secret  on  his  brow. 

The  same  note  is  in  "The  Mystery"  (or  "The 
Way,"  as  the  poet  prefers  to  call  it)  that  ap- 
peared in  Scribner's  (October,  1915) : 

He  could  not  tell  the  way  he  came 

Because  his  chart  was  lost: 
Yet  all  his  way  was  paved  with  flame 

From  the  bourne  he  crossed. 

He  did  not  know  the  way  to  go, 

Because  he  had  no  map: 
He  followed  where  the  winds  blow,— 

And  the  April  sap. 


64     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

He  never  knew  upon  his  brow 

The  secret  that  he  bore — 
And  laughs  away  the  mystery  now 

The  dark's  at  his  door. 

Mr.  Braithwaite  has  done  well.  He  is  to-day 
the  foremost  man  of  the  race  in  pure  literature. 
But  above  any  partial  or  limited  considera- 
tion, after  years  of  hard  work  he  now  has 
recognition  not  only  as  a  poet  of  standing, 
but  as  the  chief  sponsor  for  current  American 
poetry.  No  comment  on  his  work  could  be 
better  than  that  of  the  Transcript,  November 
30,  1915:  "He  has  helped  poetry  to  readers 
as  well  as  to  poets.  One  is  guilty  of  no  ex- 
travagance in  saying  that  the  poets  we  have 
— and  they  may  take  their  place  with  their 
peers  in  any  country — and  the  gathering  defer- 
ence we  pay  them,  are  created  largely  out  of 
the  stubborn,  self-effacing  enthusiasm  of  this 
one  man.  In  a  sense  their  distinction  is  his 
own.  In  a  sense  he  has  himself  written  their 
poetry.  Very  much  by  his  toil  they  may  write 
and  be  read.  Not  one  of  them  will  ever  write 
a  finer  poem  than  Braithwaite  himself  has 
lived  already." 


VII 

OTHER  WRITERS 

IN  addition  to  those  who  have  been  men- 
tioned, there  have  been  scores  of  writers 
who  would  have  to  be  considered  if  w«  were 
dealing  with  the  literature  of  the  Negro  in 
the  widest  sense  of  the  term.  Not  too  clearly, 
however,  can  the  limitations  of  our  subject 
be  insisted  upon.  We  are  here  concerned 
with  distinctly  literary  or  artistic  achievement, 
and  not  with  work  that  belongs  in  the  realm 
of  religion,  sociology,  or  politics.  Only  briefer 
mention  accordingly  can  be  given  to  these 
latter  fields. 

Naturally,  from  the  first  there  have  been 
works  dealing  with  the  place  of  the  Negro  in 
American  life.  Outstanding  after  the  numerous 
sociological  studies  and  other  contributions  to 
periodical  literature  of  Dr.  DuBois  are  the 
books  of  the  late  Booker  T.  Washington. 
Representative  of  these  are  "The  Future  of 

65 


66     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

the  American  Negro,"  "My  Larger  Education," 
and  "The  Man  Farthest  Down."  As  early  as 
1829,  however,  David  Walker,  of  Boston,  pub- 
lished his  passionate  "Appeal,"  a  protest 
against  slavery  that  awakened  Southern  legis- 
latures to  action;  and  in  the  years  just  before 
the  Civil  War,  Henry  Highland  Garnet  wrote 
sermons  and  addresses  on  the  status  of  the  race 
in  America,  while  William  Wells  Brown  wrote 
"Three  Years  in  Europe,"  and  various  other 
works,  some  of  which  will  receive  later  mention. 
After  the  war,  Alexander  Crummell  became  an 
outstanding  figure  by  reason  of  his  sermons 
and  addresses,  many  of  which  were  preserved. 
He  was  followed  by  an  interesting  group  of 
scholarly  men,  represented  especially  by  Will- 
iam S.  Scarborough,  Kelly  Miller,  and  Archi- 
bald H.  Grimke*.  Mr.  Scarborough  is  now 
president  of  Wilberforce  University.  He  has 
contributed  numerous  articles  to  representa- 
tive magazines.  His  work  in  more  technical 
fields  is  represented  by  his  "First  Lessons 
hi  Greek,"  a  treatise  on  the  "Birds"  of  Aris- 
tophanes, and  his  paper  in  the  Arena  (January, 
1897)  on  "Negro  Folk-Lore  and  Dialect." 
Mr.  Miller  is  Dean  of  the  College  of  Arts  and 


Other  Writers  67 

Sciences  at  Howard  University.  He  has  col- 
lected his  numerous  and  cogent  papers  in  two 
volumes,  "Race  Adjustment,"  and  "Out  of 
the  House  of  Bondage."  The  first  is  the  more 
varied  and  interesting  of  the  two  books,  but 
the  latter  contains  the  poetic  rhapsody,  "I 
See  and  Am  Satisfied,"  first  published  in  the 
Independent  (August  7,  1913).  Mr.  A.  H. 
Grimke",  as  well  as  Mr.  Miller,  has  contributed 
to  the  Atlantic;  and  he  has  written  the  lives 
of  Garrison  and  Sumner  in  the  American  Re- 
formers Series.  "Negro  Culture  in  West 
Africa,"  by  George  W.  Ellis,  is  original  and 
scholarly;  "The  Aftermath  of  Slavery,"  by 
William  A.  Sinclair,  is  a  volume  of  more 
than  ordinary  interest;  and  "The  African 
Abroad,"  by  William  H.  Ferris,  while  con- 
fused in  construction  and  form,  contains  much 
thoughtful  material.  Within  recent  years  there 
have  been  published  a  great  many  works, 
frequently  illustrated,  on  the  progress  and 
achievements  of  the  race.  Very  few  of  these 
books  are  scholarly.  Three  collaborations,  how- 
ever, are  of  decided  value.  One  is  a  little 
volume  entitled,  "The  Negro  Problem,"  con- 
sisting of  seven  papers  by  representative 


68     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Negroes,  and  published  in  1903  by  James 
Pott  &  Co.,  of  New  York.  Another  is  "From 
Servitude  to  Service,"  published  in  1905  by 
the  American  Unitarian  Association  of  Boston, 
and  made  up  of  the  Old  South  Lectures  on 
the  history  and  work  of  Southern  institutions 
for  the  education  of  the  Negro;  while  the 
third  collaboration  is,  "The  Negro  in  the 
South,"  published  in  1907  by  George  W. 
Jacobs  &  Co.,  of  Philadelphia,  and  made  up  of 
four  papers,  two  by  Dr.  Washington,  and  two 
by  Dr.  DuBois,  which  were  the  William  Levi 
Bull  Lectures  in  the  Philadelphia  Divinity 
School  for  the  year  1907. 

Halfway  between  works  on  the  Negro 
Problem  and  those  in  history,  are  those  hi  the 
field  of  biography  and  autobiography.  For 
decades  before  the  Civil  War  the  experiences 
of  fugitive  slaves  were  used  as  a  part  of  the 
anti-slavery  argument.  In  1845  appeared  the 
ft Narrative  of  the  Life  of  Frederick  Douglass," 
this  being  greatly  enlarged  and  extended  in 
1881  as  "The  Life  and  Tunes  of  Frederick 
Douglass."  In  similar  vein  was  the  "Auto- 
biography of  a  Fugitive  Negro,"  by  Samuel 
Ringgold  Ward.  Then  Josiah  Henson  (the 


Other  Writers  69 

original  of  Uncle  Tom)  and  Sojourner  Truth 
issued  their  narratives.  Collections  of  more 
than  ordinary  interest  were  William  Wells 
Brown's  "The  Black  Man"  (1863),  James  M. 
Trotter's  "  Music  and  Some  Highly  Musical 
People"  (1878),  and  William  J.  Simmons's 
"Men  of  Mark"  (1887).  John  Mercer  Lang- 
ston's  "From  the  Virginia  Plantation  to  the 
National  Capitol"  is  interesting  and  service- 
able; special  interest  attaches  to  Matthew 
Henson's  "A  Negro  Explorer  at  the  North 
Pole";  while  Maud  Cuney  Hare's  "Norris 
Wright  Cuney"  was  a  distinct  contribution  to 
the  history  of  Southern  politics.  The  most 
widely  known  work  in  this  field,  however,  is 
"Up  From  Slavery,"  by  Booker  T.  Wash- 
ington. The  unaffected  and  simple  style  of 
this  book  has  made  it  a  model  of  personal 
writing,  and  it  is  by  reason  of  merit  that  the 
work  has  gained  unusual  currency. 

The  study,  of  course,  becomes  more  special 
in  the  field  of  history.  Interest  from  the 
first  was  shown  in  church  history.  This  was 
represented  immediately  after  the  war  by 
Bishop  Daniel  A.  Payne's  studies  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  A.  M.  E.  Church,  and  twenty-five 


70     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

years  later,  for  the  Baptist  denomination,  by 
E.  M.  Brawley's  "The  Negro  Baptist  Pulpit." 
One  of  the  earliest  writers  of  merit  was  William 
C.  Nell,  who,  in  1851,  published  his  pamphlet, 
"Services  of  Colored  Americans  in  the  Wars  of 
1776  and  1812."  "The  Rising  Son,"  by  William 
Wells  Brown,  was  an  account  of  "the  ante- 
cedents and  advancement  of  the  colored  race"; 
the  work  gave  considerable  attention  to  Africa, 
Hayti,  and  the  colonies,  and  was  quite  scholarly 
in  method.  Then,  in  1872,  full  of  personal  ex- 
perience, appeared  William  Still's  "The  Under- 
ground Railroad."  The  epoch-making  work  hi 
history,  however,  was  the  two- volume  "His- 
tory of  the  Negro  Race  in  America,"  by  George 
W.  Williams,  which  was  issued  in  1883.  This 
work  was  the  exploration  of  a  new  field  and  the 
result  of  seven  years  of  study.  The  historian 
more  than  once  wrote  subjectively,  but  his 
work  was,  on  the  whole,  written  with  un- 
usually good  taste.  After  thirty  years  some 
of  his  pages  have,  of  course,  been  superseded; 
but  his  work  is  even  yet  the  great  storehouse 
for  students  of  Negro  history.  Technical  study 
within  recent  years  is  best  represented  by  the 
Harvard  doctorate  theses  of  Dr.  DuBois  and 


Other  Writers  71 

Dr.  Carter  G.  Woodson.  That  of  Dr.  DuBois 
has  already  been  mentioned.  That  of  Dr. 
Woodson  was  entitled  "The  Disruption  of 
Virginia."  Dr.  Woodson  is  the  editor  of  the 
Journal  of  Negro  History,  a  quarterlyjmagazine 
that  began  to  appear  in  1916,  and  that  has 
already  published  several  articles  of  the  first 
order  of  merit.  He  has  also  written  "The 
Education  of  the  Negro  Prior  to  1861,"  a  work 
in  the  most  scientific  spirit  of  modern  historical 
study,  to  which  a  companion  volume  for  the 
later  period  is  expected.  Largely  original  also 
in  the  nature  of  their  contribution  have  been 
"The  Haitian  Revolution,"  by  T.  G.  Steward, 
and  "The  Facts  of  Reconstruction,"  by  John 
R.  Lynch;  and,  while  less  intensive,  interest- 
ing throughout  is  J.  W.  Cromwell's  "The 
Negro  in  American  History." 

Many  of  the  younger  writers  are  cultivating 
the  short  story.  Especially  have  two  or  three, 
as  yet  unknown  to  the  wider  public,  done 
excellent  work  in  connection  with  syndicates 
of  great  newspapers.  "The  Goodness  of  St. 
Rocque,  and  Other  Stories,"  by  Alice  Moore 
Dunbar  (now  Mrs.  Nelson),  is  representative 
of  the  stronger  work  in  this  field.  Numerous 


72     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

attempts  at  the  composition  of  novels  have 
also  been  made.  Even  before  the  Civil  War 
was  over  appeared  William  Wells  Brown's 
"Clotille:  A  Tale  of  the  Southern  States." 
It  is  in  this  special  department,  however,  that 
a  sense  of  literary  form  has  frequently  been 
most  lacking.  The  distinctively  literary  essay 
has  not  unnaturally  suffered  from  the  general 
pressure  of  the  Problem.  A  paper  hi  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  (February,  1906),  however, 
"The  Joys  of  Being  a  Negro,"  by  Edward  E. 
Wilson,  a  Chicago  lawyer,  was  of  outstanding 
brilliancy.  A.  0.  Stafford,  of  Washington,  is 
a  special  student  of  the  folklore  of  Africa. 
He  has  contributed  several  scholarly  papers  to 
the  Journal  of  Negro  History,  and  he  has  also 
published  through  the  American  Book  Com- 
pany an  interesting  supplementary  reader, 
"Animal  Fables  From  the  Dark  Continent." 
Alain  Locke  is  interested  in  both  philosophical 
and  literary  studies,  represented  by  "The 
American  Temperament,"  a  paper  contributed 
to  the  North  American  Review  (August,  1911), 
and  a  paper  on  Emile  Verhseren  hi  the  Poetry 
Review  (January,  1917). 
Little  has  been  accomplished  in  sustained 


Otiwr  Writers  73 

poetic  flight.  Of  shorter  lyric  verse,  however, 
many  booklets  have  appeared.  As  this  is  the 
field  that  offers  peculiar  opportunity  for  sub- 
jective expression,  more  has  been  attempted 
in  it  than  in  any  other  department  of  artistic 
endeavor.  It  demands,  therefore,  special  at- 
tention, and  the  study  will  take  us  back  before 
the  Civil  War. 

The  first  person  to  attract  much  attention 
after  Phillis  Wheatley  was  George  Moses  Hor- 
ton,  of  North  Carolina,  who  was  born  in  1797 
and  died  about  1880  (or  1883).  He  was  am- 
bitious to  learn,  was  the  possessor  of  unusual 
literary  talent,  and  in  one  way  or  another  re- 
ceived instruction  from  various  persons.  He 
very  soon  began  to  write  verse,  all  of  which 
was  infused  with  his  desire  for  freedom,  and 
much  of  which  was  suggested  by  the  common 
evangelical  hymns,  as  were  the  following  lines: 

Alas!  and  am  I  born  for  this, 

To  wear  this  slavish  chain? 
Deprived  of  all  created  bliss, 

Through  hardship,  toil,  and  pain? 

How  long  have  I  in  bondage  lain, 
And  languished  to  be  free! 


74     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Alas  I  and  must  I  still  complain, 
Deprived  of  liberty? 


Come,  Liberty!  thou  cheerful  sound, 

Roll  through  my  ravished  ears; 
Come,  let  my  grief  in  joys  be  drowned, 

And  drive  away  my  fears. 

Some  of  Horton's  friends  became  interested 
in  him  and  desired  to  help  him  publish  a  volume 
of  his  poems,  so  that  from  the  sale  of  these  he 
might  purchase  his  freedom  and  go  to  the 
new  colony  of  Liberia.  The  young  man  be- 
came fired  with  ambition  and  inspiration. 
Thrilled  by  the  new  hope,  he  wrote: 

'Twas  like  the  salutation  of  the  dove, 
Borne  on  the  zephyr  through  some  lonesome  grove, 
When  spring  returns,  and  winter's  chill  is  past, 
And  vegetation  smiles  above  the  blast. 

Horton's  master,  however,  demanded  for  him 
an  exorbitant  price,  and  when  "The  Hope  of 
Liberty"  appeared  in  1829  it  had  nothing  of 
the  sale  that  was  hoped  for.  Disappointed  in 
his  great  desire,  the  poet  seems  to  have  lost 
ambition.  He  became  a  janitor  around  the 
state  university  at  Chapel  Hill,  executed  small 
commissions  for  verse  from  the  students,  who 


Other  Writers  75 

treated  him  kindly,  and  in  later  years  went 
to  Philadelphia;  but  his  old  dreams  had 
faded.  Several  reprintings  of  his  poems  were 
made,  however,  and  one  of  these  was  bound 
with  the  1838  edition  of  Phillis  Wheatley's 
poems. 

In  1854  appeared  the  first  edition  of  "Poems 
on  Miscellaneous  Subjects,"  by  Frances  Ellen 
Watkins,  commonly  known  as  Mrs.  Frances 
E.  W.  Harper.  Mrs.  Harper  was  a  woman  of 
exceptionally  strong  personality  and  could  read 
her  poems  to  advantage.  Her  verse  was  very 
popular,  not  less  than  ten  thousand  copies  of 
her  booklets  being  sold.  It  was  decidedly 
lacking  in  technique,  however,  and  much 
in  the  style  of  Mrs.  Remans.  Mrs.  Harper 
was  best  when  most  simple,  as  when  in  writing 
of  children  she  said: 

I  almost  think  the  angels 

Who  tend  life's  garden  fair, 
Drop  down  the  sweet  white  blossom* 

That  bloom  around  us  here. 

The  secret  of  her  popularity  was  to  be  seen  in 
such  lines  as  the  following  from  "Bury  Me 
in  a  Free  Land": 


76     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Make  me  a  grave  where'er  you  will, 
In  a  lowly  plain  or  a  lofty  hill; 
Make  it  among  earth's  humblest  graves, 
But  not  in  a  land  where  men  are  slaves. 

Of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  she  wrote: 

It  shall  flash  through  coming  ages, 

It  shall  light  the  distant  years; 
And  eyes  now  dim  with  sorrow 

Shall  be  brighter  through  their  tears. 

While  Mrs.  Harper  was  still  prominent!}' 
before  the  public  appeared  Albery  A.  Whitman, 
a  Methodist  minister,  whose  "Not  a  Man  and 
Yet  a  Man"  appeared  in  1877.  The  work  of 
this  writer  is  the  most  baffling  with  which  this 
book  has  to  deal.  It  is  diffuse,  exhibits  many 
lapses  in  taste,  is  uneven  metrically,  as  if 
done  hi  haste,  and  shows  imitation  on  every 
hand.  It  imitates  Whittier,  Longfellow,  Tenny- 
son, Scott,  Byron  and  Moore.  "The  Old 
Sac  Village"  and  "Nanawawa's  Suitors"  are 
very  evidently  "Hiawatha"  over  again;  and 
"Ouster's  Last  Ride"  is  simply  another  ver- 
sion of  "The  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade." 
"The  Rape  of  Florida"  exhibits  the  same 
general  characteristics  as  the  earlier  poems. 


Other  Writers  77 

And  yet,  whenever  one  has  about  decided  that 
Whitman  is  not  worthy  of  consideration,  he 
insists  on  a  revision  of  judgment.  The  fact 
is  that  he  shows  a  decided  faculty  for  brisk 
narration.  This  may  be  seen  in  "The  House 
of  the  Aylors."  He  has,  moreover,  a  romantic 
lavishness  of  description  that,  hi  spite  of  all 
technical  faults,  still  has  some  degree  of  merit. 
The  following  quotations,  taken  respectively 
from  "The  Mowers"  and  "The  Flight  of 
Leeona,"  will  exemplify  both  his  extravagance 
and  his  possibilities  in  description: 

The  tall  forests  swim  in  a  crimson  sea, 
Out  of  whose  bright  depths  rising  silently, 
Great  golden  spires  shoot  into  the  skies, 
Among  the  isles  of  cloudland  high,  that  rise, 
Float,  scatter,  burst,  drift  off,  and  slowly  fade, 
Deep  in  the  twilight,  shade  succeeding  shade. 

And  now  she  turns  upon  a  mossy  seat, 
Where  sings  a  fern-bound  stream  beneath  her  feet, 
And  breathes  the  orange  in  the  swooning  air; 
Where  in  her  queenly  pride  the  rose  blooms  fan*, 
And  sweet  geranium  waves  her  scented  hair; 
There,  gazing  in  the  bright  face  of  the  stream, 
Her  thoughts  swim  onward  in  a  gentle  dream. 

In  "A  Dream  of  Glory"  occur  the  lines: 


78     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

The  fairest  blooms  are  born  of  humble  weeds, 
That  faint  and  perish  in  the  pathless  wood; 

And  out  of  bitter  life  grow  noble  deeds 
To  pass  unnoticed  in  the  multitude. 

Whitman's  shortcomings  become  readily  ap- 
parent when  he  attempts  sustained  work.  "The 
Rape  of  Florida"  is  the  longest  poem  yet  writ- 
ten by  a  Negro  in  America,  and  also  the  only 
attempt  by  a  member  of  the  race  to  use  the 
elaborate  Spenserian  stanza  throughout  a  long 
piece  of  work.  The  story  is  concerned  with 
the  capture  of  the  Seminoles  in  Florida  through 
perfidy  and  the  taking  of  them  away  to  their 
new  home  in  the  West.  It  centers  around 
three  characters,  Palmecho,  an  old  chief,  Ewald, 
his  daughter,  and  Atlassa,  a  young  Seminole 
who  is  Ewald's  lover.  The  poem  is  decidedly 
diffuse;  there  is  too  much  subjective  descrip- 
tion, too  little  strong  characterization.  Pal- 
mecho, instead  of  being  a  stout  warrior,  is  a 
"chief  of  peace  and  kindly  deeds."  Stanzas  of 
merit,  however,  occasionally  strike  the  eye.  The 
boat-song  forces  recognition  as  genuine  poetry: 

"Come  now,  my  love,  the  moon  is  on  the  lake; 

Upon  the  waters  is  my  light  canoe; 
Come  with  me,  love,  and  gladsome  oars  shall  make 
A  music  on  the  parting  wave  for  you, — 


Other  Writers  79 

Come  o'er  tht  waters  deep  and  dark  and  blue; 
Come  where  the  lilies  in  the  marge  have  sprung, 

Come  with  me,  love,  for  Oh,  my  lova  is  true!" 
This  is  the  song  that  on  the  lake  was  sung, 
The  boatman  sang  it  over  when  his  heart  was  young. 

In  1890  Whitman  brought  out  an  edition  of 
"Not  a  Man  and  Yet  a  Man"  and  "The 
Rape  of  Florida,"  adding  to  these  a  collection 
of  miscellaneous  poems,  "Drifted  Leaves,"  and 
in  1901  he  published  "An  Idyl  of  the  South," 
an  epic  poem  in  two  parts.  It  is  to  be  regretted 
that  he  did  not  have  the  training  that  comes 
from  the  best  university  education.  He  had 
the  taste  and  the  talent  to  benefit  from  such 
culture  hi  the  greatest  degree. 

All  who  went  before  him  were,  of  course, 
superseded  in  1896  by  Paul  Laurence  Dunbar; 
and  Dunbar  started  a  tradition.  Throughout 
the  country  there  sprang  up  imitators,  and 
some  of  the  mutations  were  more  than  fair. 
All  of  this,  however,  was  a  passing'phenomenon. 
Those  who  are  writing  at  the  present  day  almost 
invariably  eschew  dialect  and  insist  upon  classic 
forms  and  measures.  Prominent  among  these 
is  James  Weldon  Johnson.  Mr.  Johnson  has 
seen  a  varied  career  as  teacher,  writer,  consul 
for  the  United  States  hi  foreign  countries, 


80     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

especially  Nicaragua,  and  national  organizer 
for  the  National  Association  for  the  Advance- 
ment of  Colored  People.  He  has  written 
numerous  songs,  which  have  been  set  to  music 
by  his  brother,  Rosamond  Johnson,  or  Harry 
T.  Burleigh;  he  made  for  the  Metropolitan 

Opera  the  English  translation  of  the  Spanish 
opera,  "Goyescas,"  by  Granados  and  Periquet; 
and  in  1916,  while  associated  with  the  Age,  of 
New  York,  in  a  contest  opened  by  the  Public 
Ledger,  of  Philadelphia,  to  editorial  writers  all 
over  the  country,  he  won  a  third  prize  of  two 
hundred  dollars  for  a  campaign  editorial.  The 
remarkable  book,  "Autobiography  of  an  Ex- 
Colored  Man,"  half  fact,  half  fiction,  was  pub- 
lished anonymously,  but  is  generally  credited 
to  Mr.  Johnson.  Very  recently  (December, 
1917)  has  appeared  this  writer's  collection, 
"Fifty  Years  and  Other  Poems."  In  pure  lyric 
flow  he  is  best  represented  by  two  poems  in 
the  Century.  One  was  a  sonnet  entitled, 
"Mother  Night"  (February,  1910): 

Eternities  before  the  first-born  day, 
Or  ere  the  first  sun  fledged  his  wings  of  flame, 
Calm  Night,  the  everlasting  and  the  same, 

A  brooding  mother  over  chaos  lay. 


Other  Writers  81 

And  whirling  BUILS  shall  blaze  and  then  decay, 
Shall  run  their  licry  courses  and  then  claim 
Tho  haven  of  the  darkness  whence  they  rains; 

Back  to  Nirvanic  peace  shall  grope  their  way. 

So  when  my  feeble  sun  of  life  burns  out, 
And  sounded  is  the  hour  for  my  long  sleep, 
I  shall,  full  weary  of  the  feverish  light, 

Welcome  the  darkness  without  foar  or  doubt, 
And,  heavy-lidded,  I  shall  softly  creep 
Into  the  quiet  bosom  of  the  Night. 

When  we  think  of  the  large  number  of  those 
who  luive  longed  for  success  in  artistic  ex- 
prcasion,  and  especially  of  the  first  singcru  of 
the  old  melodies,  we  could  close  this  review 
with  nothing  better  than  Mr.  Johnson's  tribute, 
"0  Black  and  Unknown  Bards"  (Century, 
November,  1908): 

0  blaek  and  unknown  bards  of  long  ago, 

I  low  came  your  lips  to  touch  the  flacred  fire? 
How,  in  your  darkness,  did  you  come  to  know 

The  power  and  beauty  of  the  minstrel's  lyre? 
Who  first  from  'midst  his  bonds  lifted  his  eyes? 

Who  first  from  out  the  still  watch,  lone  and  long, 
Feeling  the  ancient  faith  of  prophets  rise 

Within  his  dark-kept  soul,  burst  into  song? 

There  is  a  wide,  wide  wonder  in  it  all, 
That  from  degraded  rest  and  servile  toil, 

Tho  fiery  spirit  of  the  seer  should  call 
These  simple  children  of  the  sun  and  soil. 


2     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

O  black  singers,  gone,  forgot,  uiifamed, 
You— you  alone,  of  all  the  long,  long  line 

Of  those  who've  sung  untaught,  unknown,  unnamed, 
Have  stretched  out  upward,  seeking  the  divine. 

You  sang  not  deeds  of  herdfca  or  of  kings: 

No  chant  of  bloody  war,  nor  exulting  peean 
Of  arms- won  triumphs;   but  your  humble  strings 

You  touched  in  chords  with  music  empyrean. 
You  sang  far  better  than  you  knew,  the  songa 

That  for  your  listeners'  hungry  hearts  sufficed 
Still  live — but  more  than  this  to  you  belongs: 

You  sang  a  race  from  wood  and  stone  to  Christ. 


VIII 

ORATORS. — DOUGLASS  AND  WASHINGTON 

THE  Negro  is  peculiarly  gifted  as  an  orator. 
To  magnificent  gifts  of  voice  he  adds  a 
fervor  of  sentiment  and  an  appreciation  of  the 
possibilities  of  a  great  occasion  that  are  in- 
dispensable in  the  work  of  one  who  excels  in 
this  field.  Greater  than  any  of  these  things, 
however,  is  the  romantic  quality  that  finds  an 
outlet  in  vast  reaches  of  imagery  and  a  sin- 
gularly figurative  power  of  expression.  Only 
this  innate  gift  of  rhetorical  expression  has 
accounted  for  the  tremendous  effects  sometimes 
realized  even  by  untutored  members  of  the 
race.  Its  possibilities  under  the  influences  of 
culture  and  education  are  illimitable. 

On  one  occasion  Harriet  Tubman,  famous 
for  her  work  in  the  Underground  Railroad, 
was  addressing  an  audience  and  describing  a 
great  battle  in  the  Civil  War.  "And  then/1 
said  she,  "we  saw  the  lightning,  and  that 

83 


84     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

was  the  guns;  and  then  we  heard  the  thunder, 
and  that  was  the  big  guns;  and  then  we  heard 
the  rain  falling,  and  that  was  drops  of  blood 
falling;  and  when  we  came  to  git  in  the  craps, 
it  was  dead  men  that  we  reaped."  *  All  through 
the  familiar  melodies  one  finds  the  pathos  and 
the  poetry  of  this  imagery.  Two  unusual  in- 
dividuals, untutored  but  highly  gifted  in  their 
own  spheres,  in  the  course  of  the  last  century 
proved  eminently  successful  by  joining  this 
rhetorical  faculty  to  their  native  earnestness. 
One  of  these  was  the  anti-slavery  speaker, 
Sojourner  Truth.  Tall,  majestic,  and  yet  quite 
uneducated,  this  interesting  woman  sometimes 
dazzled  her  audiences  by  her  sudden  turns  of 
expression.  Anecdotes  of  her  quick  and  start- 
ling replies  are  numberless.  The  other  char- 
acter was  John  Jasper,  of  Richmond,  Va., 
famous  three  decades  ago  for  his  "Sun  do 
move"  sermon.  Jasper  preached  not  only  on 
this  theme,  but  also  on  "Dry  bones'  in  the 
valley,"  the  glories  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  and 
many  similar  subjects  that  have  been  used  by 
other  preachers,  sometimes  with  hardly  less 
effect,  throughout  the  South.  When  one  made 
'Reported  by  A.  B.  Hart,  in  "Slavery  and  Abolition,"  209. 


Orators. — Douglass  and  Washington  86 

all  discount  for  the  tinsel  and  the  dialect,  he 
still  would  have  found  hi  the  work  of  John 
Jasper  much  of  the  power  of  the  true  orator. 

Other  men  have  joined  to  this  love  for 
figurative  expression  the  advantages  of  cul- 
ture; and  a  common  characteristic,  thoroughly 
typical  of  the  romantic  quality  constantly 
present,  is  a  fondness  for  biblical  phrase.  As 
representative  might  be  remarked  Robert  B. 
Elliott,  famous  for  his  speech  in  Congress  on 
the  constitutionality  of  the  Civil  Rights  Bill; 
John  Mercer  Langston,  also  distinguished  for 
many  political  addresses;  M.  C.  B.  Mason,  for 
years  a  prominent  representative  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church;  and  Charles  T.  Walker, 
still  the  most  popular  preacher  of  the  Negro 
Baptists.  A  new  and  telling  form  of  public 
speaking,  destined  to  have  more  and  more  im- 
portance, is  that  just  now  best  cultivated  by 
Dr.  DuBois,  who,  with  little  play  of  voice  or 
gesture,  but  with  the  earnestness  of  conviction, 
drives  home  his  message  with  instant  effect.  * 

In  any  consideration  of  oratory  one  must 
constantly  bear  in  mind,  of  course,  the  im- 
portance of  the  spoken  word  and  the  personal 
equation.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  re- 


86     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

membered  that  many  of  the  most  worthy  ad- 
dresses made  by  Negroes  have  not  been  pre- 
served in  accessible  form.  Again  and  again, 
in  some  remote  community,  with  true  elo- 
quence has  an  untutored  preacher  brought 
comfort  and  inspiration  to  a  struggling  people. 
J.  C.  Price,  for  years  president  of  Livingstone 
College  in  North  Carolina,  was  one  of  the 
truest  orators  the  Negro  race  ever  had,  and 
many  who  heard  him  will  insist  that  he  was 
foremost.  His  name  has  become  in  some 
quarters  a  synonym  for  eloquence,  and  he 
certainly  appeared  on  many  noteworthy  occa- 
sions with  marked  effect.  His  reputation  will 
finally  suffer,  however,  for  the  reason  given, 
that  his  speeches  are  not  now  generally  acces- 
sible. Not  one  is  in  Mrs.  Dunbar's  "Master- 
pieces of  Negro  Eloquence." 

One  of  the  most  effective  occasional  speakers 
within  recent  years  has  been  Reverdy  C.  Ran- 
som, of  the  A.  M.  E.  Church.  In  his  great 
moments  Mr.  Ransom  has  given  the  impression 
of  the  true  orator.  He  has  little  humor,  is 
stately  and  dignified,  but  bitter  hi  satire  and 
invective.  There  is,  in  fact,  much  in  his  speak- 
ing to  remind  one  of  Frederick  Douglass.  One 


Orators. — Douglass  and  Washington  87 

of  his  greatest  efforts  was  that  on  the  occasion 
of  the  celebration  of  the  one  hundredth  anni- 
versary of  the  birth  of  Garrison,  hi  Faneuil 
Hall,  Boston,  December  11,  1905.  Said  he,  in 
part: 

What  kind  of  Negroes  do  the  American  people  want? 
That  they  must  have  the  Negro  in  some  relation  is  no 
longer  a  question  of  serious  debate.  What  kind  of  Negroes 
do  the  American  people  want?  Do  they  want  a  voteless 
Negro  in  a  republic  founded  upon  universal  suffrage? 
Do  they  want  a  Negro  who  shall  not  be  permitted  to 
participate  hi  the  government  which  he  must  support 
with  bis  treasure  and  defend  with  his  blood?  Do  they 
want  a  Negro  who  shall  consent  to  be  set  aside  as  forming 
a  distinct  industrial  class,  permitted  to  rise  no  higher 
than  the  level  of  serfs  or  peasants?  Do  they  want  a 
Negro  who  shall  accept  an  inferior  social  position,  not 
as  a  degradation,  but  as  the  just  operation  of  the  laws  of 
caste  based  on  color?  Do  they  want  a  Negro  who  will 
avoid  friction  between  the  races  by  consenting  to  occupy 
the  place  to  which  white  men  may  choose  to  assign  him? 
What  kind  of  a  Negro  do  the  American  people  want? 
.  .  .  Taught  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  sustained 
by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  enlightened 
by  the  education  of  our  schools,  this  nation  can  no  more 
resist  the  advancing  tread  of  the  hosts  of  the  oncoming 
blacks  than  it  can  bind  the  stars  or  halt  the  resistless 
motion  of  the  tide.* 

'Quoted  from  "Masterpieces  of  Negro  Eloquence,"  314-5. 


88     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Two  men,  by  reason  of  great  natural  endow- 
ment, a  fitting  appreciation  of  great  occasions, 
and  the  consistency  with  which  they  produced 
their  effects,  have  won  an  undisputed  place 
in  any  consideration  of  American  orators. 
These  men  were  Frederick  Douglass  and  Booker 
T.  Washington. 

Frederick  Douglass  was  born  hi  1817  and 
lived  for  ten  years  as  a  slave  upon  a  Maryland 
plantation.  Then  he  was  bought  by  a  Balti- 
more shipbuilder.  He  learned  to  read,  and, 
being  attracted  by  "The  Lady  of  the  Lake," 
when  he  escaped  in  1838  and  went  disguised 
as  a  sailor  to  New  Bedford,  Mass.,  he  adopted 
the  name  Douglas  (spelling  it  with  two  s's,  how- 
ever). He  lived  for  several  years  in  New  Bed- 
ford, being  assisted  by  Garrison  in  his  efforts 
for  an  education.  In  1841,  at  an  anti-slavery 
convention  in  Nantucket,  he  exhibited  such 
intelligence,  and  showed  himself  the  possessor 
of  such  a  remarkable  voice,  that  he  was  made 
the  agent  of  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery 
Society.  He  now  lectured  extensively  in  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States,  and  English 
friends  raised  £150  to  enable  him  regularly 
to  purchase  his  freedom.  For  some  years  be- 


Orators. — Douglass  and  Washington  89 

fore  the  Civil  War  he  lived  in  Rochester,  N.  Y., 
where  he  published  a  paper,  The  North  Star, 
and  where  there  is  now  a  public  monument 
to  him.  Later  in  life  he  became  Recorder  of 
Deeds  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  then 
Minister  to  Hayti.  At  the  tune  of  his  death 
in  1895  Douglass  had  won  for  himself  a  place 
of  unique  distinction.  Large  of  heart  and  of 
mind,  he  was  interested  hi  every  forward  move- 
ment for  his  people;  but  his  charity  embraced 
all  men  and  all  races.  His  reputation  was  in- 
ternational, and  to-day  many  of  his  speeches 
are  to  be  found  hi  the  standard  works  on 
oratory. 

Mr.  Chesnutt  has  admirably  summed  up 
the  personal  characteristics  of  the  oratory  of 
Douglass.  He  tells  us  that  "Douglass  pos- 
sessed, in  large  measure,  the  physical  equip- 
ment most  impressive  in  an  orator.  He  was 
a  man  of  magnificent  figure,  tall,  strong,  his 
head  crowned  with  a  mass  of  hah*  which  made 
a  striking  element  of  his  appearance.  He  had 
deep-set  and  flashing  eyes,  a  firm,  well-moulded 
chin,  a  countenance  somewhat  severe  hi  re- 
pose, but  capable  of  a  wide  range  of  expression. 
His  voice  was  rich  and  melodious,  and  of 


90    The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

carrying  power."  *  Douglass  was  distinctly 
dignified,  eloquent,  and  majestic;  he  could  not 
be  funny  or  witty.  Sorrow  for  the  slave,  and 
indignation  against  the  master,  gave  force  to 
his  words,  though,  in  his  later  years,  his  oratory 
became  less  and  less  heavy  and  more  refined. 
He  was  not  always  on  the  popular  side,  nor 
was  he  always  exactly  logical;  thus  he  incurred 
much  censure  for  his  opposition  to  the  exodus 
of  the  Negro  from  the  South  in  1879.  For 
half  a  century,  however,  he  was  the  outstand- 
ing figure  of  the  race  in  the  United  States. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  speech  of  his  life  was 
that  which  Douglass  made  at  Rochester  on  the 
5th  of  July,  1852.  His  subject  was  "American 
Slavery,"  and  he  spoke  with  his  strongest  in- 
vective. The  following  paragraphs  from  the 
introduction  will  serve  to  illustrate  his  fond- 
ness for  interrogation  and  biblical  phrase: 

Pardon  me,  and  allow  me  to  ask,  Why  am  I  called 
upon  to  speak  here  to-day?  What  have  I,  or  those  I 
represent,  to  do  with  your  national  independence?  Are 
the  great  principles  of  political  freedom  and  of  natural 
justice  embodied  in  that  Declaration  of  Independence 
extended  to  us?  And  am  I,  therefore,  called  upon  to 
bring  our  humble  offering  to  the  national  altar,  and  to 

*  "Frederick  Douglass,"  107-8. 


Orators. — Douglass  and  Washington  91 

confess  the  benefits,  and  express  devout  gratitude  for 
the  blessings  resulting  from  your  independence  to  us? 


By  the  rivers  of  Babylon,  there  we  sat  down,  yea,  we 
wept,  when  we  remembered  Zion.  We  hanged  our  harps 
upon  the  willows  in  the  midst  thereof.  For  there  they 
that  carried  us  away  captive  required  of  us  a  song;  and 
they  that  had  wasted  us  required  of  us  mirth,  saying, 
Sing  us  one  of  the  songs  of  Zion.  How  shall  we  sing  the 
Lord's  song  in  a  strange  land?  If  I  forget  thee,  0  Jerusa- 
lem, let  my  right  hand  forget  her  cunning.  If  I  do  not 
remember  thee,  let  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my 
mouth.* 

The  years  and  emancipation  and  the  progress 
of  his  people  in  the  new  day  gave  a  more  hope- 
ful tone  to  some  of  the  later  speeches  of  the 
orator.  In  an  address  on  the  7th  of  December, 
1890,  he  said: 

I  have  seen  dark  hours  in  my  life,  and  I  have  seen  the 
darkness  gradually  disappearing,  and  the  light  gradually 
increasing.  One  by  one  I  have  seen  obstacles  removed, 
errors  corrected,  prejudices  softened,  proscriptions  re- 
linquished, and  ray  people  advancing  in  all  the  elements 
that  make  up  the  sum  of  general  welfare.  I  remember 
that  God  reigns  in  eternity,  and  that,  whatever  delays, 
disappointments,  and  discouragements  may  come,  truth, 
justice,  liberty,  and  humanity  will  prevail.! 

*  Quoted  from  Williams,  II,  435-6. 

f  Quoted  from  Foreword  in  "In  Memoriam:  Frederick 

Douglass." 


92     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Booker  T.  Washington  was  born  about 
1858,  in  Franklin  County,  Virginia.  After 
the  Civil  War  his  mother  and  stepfather  re- 
moved to  Maiden,  W.  Va.,  where,  when  he 
became  large  enough,  he  worked  in  the  salt 
furnaces  and  the  coal  mines.  He  had  always 
been  called  Booker,  but  it  was  not  until  he 
went  to  a  little  school  at  his  home  and  found 
that  he  needed  a  surname  that,  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment,  he  adopted  Washington.  In  1872 
he  worked  his  way  to  Hampton  Institute, 
where  he  paid  his  expenses  by  assisting  as  a 
janitor.  Graduating  in  1875,  he  returned  to 
Maiden  and  taught  school  for  three  years.  He 
then  attended  for  a  year  Wayland  Seminary 
hi  Washington  (now  incorporated  in  Virginia 
Union  University  in  Richmond),  and  hi  1879 
was  appointed  an  instructor  at  Hampton.  In 
1881  there  came  to  General  Armstrong,  prin- 
cipal of  Hampton  Institute,  a  call  from  the 
little  town  of  Tuskegee,  Ala.,  for  someone  to 
organize  and  become  the  principal  of  a  normal 
school  which  the  people  wanted  to  start  in 
that  place.  He  recommended  Mr.  Washington, 
who  opened  the  school  on  the  4th  of  July  in  an 
old  church  and  a  little  shanty,  with  an  attend- 


Orators. — Douglass  and  Washington  93 

ance  of  thirty  pupils.  In  1895  Mr.  Washing- 
ton came  into  national  prominence  by  a  re- 
markable speech  at  the  Cotton  States  Exposi- 
tion in  Atlanta,  and  after  that  he  interested 
educators  and  thinking  people  generally  in  the 
working  out  of  his  ideas  of  practical  education. 
He  was  the  author  of  several  books  along  lines 
of  industrial  education  and  character-building, 
and  in  his  later  years  only  one  or  two  other 
men  in  America  could  rival  his  power  to  at- 
tract and  hold  great  audiences.  Harvard  Uni- 
versity conferred  on  him  the  degree  of  Master 
of  Arts  in  1896,  and  Dartmouth  that  of  Doctor 
of  Laws  in  1901.  He  died  in  1915. 

In  the  course  of  his  career  Mr.  Washington 
delivered  hundreds  of  addresses  on  distinguished 
occasions.  He  was  constantly  in  demand  at 
colleges  and  universities,  great  educational 
meetings,  and  gatherings  of  a  civic  or  public 
character.  His  Atlanta  speech  is  famous  for 
the  so-called  compromise  with  the  white  South: 
"In  all  things  that  are  purely  social  we  can 
be  as  separate  as  the  fingers,  yet  one  as  the 
hand  in  all  things  essential  to  mutual  progress.1' 
On  receiving  his  degree  at  Harvard  in  1896,  he 
made  a  speech  hi  which  he  emphasized  the  fact 


94     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

that  the  welfare  of  the  richest  and  most  cul- 
tured person 'in  New  England  was  bound  up 
with  that  of  the  humblest  man  in  Alabama, 
and  that  each  man  was  his  brother's  keeper. 
Along  somewhat  the  same  line  he  spoke  the 
next  year  at  the  unveiling  of  the  Robert  Gould 
Shaw  Monument  in  Boston.  At  the  Chicago 
Peace  Jubilee  in  1898  he  reviewed  the  conduct 
of  the  Negro  in  the  wars  of  the  United  States, 
making  a  powerful  plea  for  justice  to  a  race 
that  had  always  chosen  the  better  part  in 
the  wars  of  the  country.  Mr.  Washington 
delivered  many  addresses,  but  he  never  really 
surpassed  the  feeling  and  point  and  oratorical 
quality  of  these  early  speeches.  The  following 
paragraph  from  the  Atlanta  speech  will  illus- 
trate his  power  of  vivid  and  apt  illustration: 

A  ship  lost  at  sea  for  many  days  suddenly  sighted  a 
friendly  vessel.  From  the  mast  of  the  unfortunate  vessel 
was  seen  a  signal:  "Water,  water;  we  die  of  thirst!" 
The  answer  from  the  friendly  vessel  at  once  came  back: 
"Cast  down  your  bucket  where  you  are."  A  second  time 
the  signal,  "Water,  water;  send  us  water!"  ran  up  from 
the  distressed  vessel,  and  was  answered:  "Cast  down 
your  bucket  where  you  are."  And  a  third  and  a  fourth 
signal  for  water  was  answered:  "Cast  down  your  bucket 
where  you  are."  The  captain  of  the  distressed  vessel, 
at  last  heeding  the  injunction,  cast  down  his  bucket, 


Orators. — Douglass  and  Washington  95 

and  it  came  up  full  of  fresh,  sparkling  water  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Amazon  River.  To  those  of  my  race  who 
depend  on  bettering  their  condition  in  a  foreign  land, 
or  who  underestimate  the  importance  of  cultivating 
friendly  relations  with  the  Southern  white  man,  who  is 
their  next  door  neighbor,  I  would  say:  "Cast  down  your 
bucket  where  you  are" — cast  it  down  in  making  friends 
in  every  manly  way  of  the  people  of  all  races  by  whom 
we  are  surrounded.41 

The  power  to  realize  with  fine  feeling  the 
possibilities  of  an  occasion  may  be  illustrated 
from  the  speech  at  Harvard: 

If  through  me,  an  humble  representative,  seven  mil- 
lions of  my  people  in  the  South  might  be  permitted  to 
send  a  message  to  Harvard — Harvard  that  offered  up 
on  death's  altar  young  Shaw,  aiid  Russell,  and  Lowell, 
and  scores  of  others,  that  we  might  have  a  free  and  united 
country — that  message  would  be,  Tell  them  that  the 
sacrifice  was  not  in  vain.  Tell  them  that  by  habits  of 
thrift  and  economy,  by  way  of  the  industrial  school  and 
college,  we  are  coming  up.  We  are  crawling  up,  working 
up,  yea,  bursting  up — often  through  oppression,  unjust 
discrimination  and  prejudice,  but  through  them  all  we 
are  coming  up,  and  with  proper  habits,  intelligence,  and 
property,  there  is  no  power  on  earth  that  can  permanently 
stay  our  progress,! 

The  eloquence  of  Douglass  differed  from  that 
of  Washington  as  does  the  power  of  a  gifted 

*  Quoted  from  "Story  of  My  Life  and  Work,"  165-6. 
f  Quoted  from  "Story  of  My  yfe  and  Work,"  210-11. 


96     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

orator  differ  from  the  force  of  a  finished  public 
speaker.  The  one  was  subjective;  the  other 
was  objective.  Douglass  swayed  his  audience, 
and  even  himself,  by  the  sweep  of  his  passion 
and  rhetoric;  Washington  studied  every  de- 
tail and  weighed  every  word,  always  keeping 
hi  mind  the  final  impression  to  be  made. 
Douglass  was  an  idealist,  impatient  for  the 
day  of  perfect  fruition;  Washington  was  an 
opportunist,  making  the  most  of  each  chance 
as  it  came.  The  one  voiced  the  sorrows  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  for  the  moment  produced 
the  more  tremendous  effect;  the  other  longed 
for  the  blessing  of  the  New  Testament  and 
spoke  with  lasting  result.  Both  loved  their 
people  and  each  in  his  own  way  worked  as  he 
could  best  see  the  light.  By  his  earnestness 
each  in  his  day  gained  a  hearing;  by  their 
sincerity  both  found  a  place  in  the  oratory 
not  only  of  the  Negro  but  of  the  world. 


IX 

THE   STAGE 

IN  no  other  field  has  the  Negro  with  artistic 
aspirations  found  the  road  so  hard  as  in 
that  of  the  classic  drama.  In  spite  of  the 
far-reaching  influence  of  the  Negro  on  American 
life,  it  is  only  within  the  last  two  years  that 
this  distinct  racial  element  has  begun  to  re- 
ceive serious  attention.  If  we  pass  over  Othello 
as  professedly  a  Moor  rather  than  a  Negro, 
we  find  that  the  Negro,  as  he  has  been  pre- 
sented on  the  English  or  American  stage,  is 
best  represented  by  such  a  character  as  Mungo 
in  the  comic  opera,  "The  Padlock,"  on  the 
boards  at  Drury  Lane  in  1768.  Mungo  is 
the  slave  of  a  West  Indian  planter;  he  be- 
comes profane  in  the  second  act  and  sings  a 
burlesque  song.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  there  was 
no  dramatic  or  sympathetic  study  of  the  race. 
Even  Uncle  Tom  was  a  conventional  embodi- 

97 


98     The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

ment  of  patience  and  meekness  rather  than  a 
highly  individualized  character. 

On  the  legitimate  stage  the  Negro  was  not 
wanted.  That  he  could  succeed,  however, 
was  shown  by  such  a  career  as  that  of  Ira 
Aldridge.  This  distinguished  actor,  making 
his  way  from  America  to  the  freer  life  of 
Europe,  entered  upon  the  period  of  his  greatest 
artistic  success  when,  in  1833,  at  Covent  Gar- 
den, he  played  Othello  to  the  lago  of  Edmund 
Kean,  the  foremost  actor  of  the  time.  He  was 
universally  ranked  as  a  great  tragedian.  In 
the  years  1852-5  he  played  in  Germany.  In 
1857  the  King  of  Sweden  invited  him  to  visit 
Stockholm.  The  King  of  Prussia  bestowed 
upon  him  a  first-class  medal  of  the  arts  and 
sciences.  The  Emperor  of  Austria  compli- 
mented him  with  an  autograph  letter;  the 
Czar  of  Russia  gave  him  a  decoration,  and 
various  other  honors  were  showered  upon  him. 

Such  is  the  noblest  tradition  of  the  Negro 
on  the  stage.  In  course  of  time,  however,  be- 
cause of  the  new  blackface  ministrelsy  that  be- 
came popular  soon  after  the  Civil  War,  all 
association  of  the  Negro  with  the  classic  drama 
was  effectively  erased  from  the  public  mind. 


The  Stage  99 

Near  the  turn  of  the  century  some  outlet  was 
found  in  light  musical  comedy.  Prominent  in 
the  transition  from  minstrelsy  to  the  new  form 
were  Bob  Cole  and  Ernest  Hogan;  and  the 
representative  musical  comedy  companies  have 
been  those  of  Cole  and  Johnson,  and  Williams 
and  Walker.  Bert  Williams  is  to-day  generally 
remarked  as  one  of  the  two  or  three  foremost 
comedians  on  the  American  stage.  Even  musi- 
cal comedy,  however,  is  not  so  prominent  as 
it  was  ten  years  ago,  by  reason  of  the  competi- 
tion of  vaudeville  and  moving-pictures;  and 
any  representation  of  the  Negro  on  the  stage 
at  the  present  tune  is  likely  to  be  either  a 
burlesque,  or,  as  in  such  pictures  as  those  of 
"The  Birth  of  a  Nation,"  a  deliberate  and 
malicious  libel  on  the  race. 

In  different  ones  of  the  Negro  colleges,  how- 
ever, and  elsewhere,  are  there  those  who  have 
dreamed  of  a  true  Negro  drama — a  drama  that 
should  get  away  from  the  minstrelsy  and  the 
burlesque  and  honestly  present  Negro  char- 
acters face  to  face  with  all  the  problems  that 
test  the  race  in  the  crucible  of  American  civil- 
ization. The  representative  institutions  give 
frequent  amateur  productions,  not  only  of 


100  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

classical  plays,  but  also  of  sincere  attempts  at 
the  faithful  portrayal  of  Negro  character.  In 
even  wider  fields,  however,  is  the  possibility 
of  the  material  for  serious  dramatic  treatment 
being  tested.  In  the  spring  of  1914  "Granny 
Maumee,"  by  Ridgely  Torrence,  a  New  York 
dramatist,  was  produced  by  the  Stage  Society 
of  New  York.  The  part  of  Granny  Maumee 
was  taken  by  Dorothy  Donnelly,  one  of  the 
most  emotional  and  sincere  of  American  ac- 
tresses; two  performances  were  given,  and 
Carl  Van  Vechten,  writing  of  the  occasion  in 
the  New  York  Press,  said:  "It  is  as  important 
an  event  in  our  theater  as  the  first  play  by 
Synge  was  to  the  Irish  movement."  Another 
experiment  was  "Children,"  by  Guy  Bolton 
and  Tom  Carlton,  presented  by  the  Washing- 
ton Square  Players  in  March,  1916,  a  little 
play  in  which  a  mother  shoots  her  son  rather 
than  give  him  up  to  a  lynching  party.  In 
April,  1917,  "Granny  Maumee,"  with  two 
other  short  plays  by  Mr.  Torrence,  "The 
Rider  of  Dreams,"  and  "Simon  the  Cyrenian," 
was  again  put  on  the  stage  in  New  York,  this 
time  with  a  company  of  colored  actors,  prom- 
inent among  whom  were  Opal  Cooper  and  Inez 


The  Stage  101 

Clough.  This  whole  production,  advertised  as 
"the  first  colored  dramatic  company  to  appear 
on  Broadway,"  was  under  the  patronage  of 
Mrs.  Norman  Hapgood  and  the  direction  of 
Robert  Jfrlniond  Jones,  and  its  success  was 
such  as  to  give  hopes  of  much  greater  things  in 
the  future. 

Three  or  four  other  representative  efforts 
within  the  race  itself  in  the  great  field  of  the 
drama  must  be  remarked.  One  of  the  most 
sincere  was  "The  Exile,"  written  by  E.  C. 
Williams,  and  presented  at  the  Howard  The- 
ater in  Washington,  May  29,  1915,  a  play  deal- 
ing with  an  episode  in  the  life  of  Lorenzo  de 
Medici.  The  story  used  is  thoroughly  dramatic, 
and  that  part  of  the  composition  that  is  in 
blank  verse  is  of  a  notable  degree  of  smooth- 
ness. "The  Star  of  Ethiopia,"  by  Dr.  DuBois, 
was  a  pageant,  elaborately  presented.  Origi- 
nally produced  in  New  York  in  1913,  it  also 
saw  performances  in  Washington  and  Phila- 
delphia. The  spring  of  1916  witnessed  the 
beginning  of  the  work  of  the  Edward  Sterling 
Wright  Players,  of  New  York.  This  company 
used  the  legitimate  drama  and  made  a  favor- 
able impression,  especially  by  its  production  of 


102  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

"Othello."  At  present  special  interest  attaches 
to  the  work  of  the  Lafayette  Players  in  New 
York,  who  have  already  made  commendable 
progress  in  the  production  of  popular  plays. 

The  field  is  comparatively  new.  It  is,  how- 
ever, one  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  ability  of 
the  Negro  race,  and  at  least  enough  has  been 
done  so  far  to  show  that  both  Negro  effort 
in  the  classic  drama  and  the  serious  portrayal 
of  Negro  life  on  the  stage  are  worthy  of  re- 
spectful consideration. 


PAINTERS. — HENRY  O.  TANNER 

AINTING  has  long  been  a  medium  through 
1  which  the  artistic  spirit  of  the  race  yearned 
to  find  expression.  As  far  back  as  in  the 
work  of  Phillis  Wheatley  there  is  a  poem 
addressed  to  "S.  M."  (Scipio  Moorhead),  "a 
young  African  painter,"  one  of  whose  subjects 
was  the  story  of  Damon  and  Pythias.  It  was 
a  hundred  years  more,  however,  before  there 
was  really  artistic  production.  E.  M.  Ban- 
nister, whose  home  was  at  Providence,  though 
little  known  to  the  younger  generation,  was 
very  prominent  forty  years  ago.  He  gathered 
about  himself  a  coterie  of  artists  and  rich  men 
that  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  Rhode  Island 
Art  Club,  and  one  of  his  pictures  took  a  medal 
at  the  Centennial  Exposition  of  1876.  William 
A.  Harper,  who  died  in  1910,  was  a  product 
of  the  Chicago  Art  Institute,  at  whose  exhibi- 
tions his  pictures  received  much  favorable  com- 

103 


104   The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

ment  about  1908  and  1910.  On  his  return  from 
his  first  period  of  study  in  Paris  his  "Avenue  of 
Poplars"  took  a  prize  of  one  hundred  dollars 
at  the  Institute.  Other  typical  subjects  were 
"The  Last  Gleam,"  "The  Hillside,"  and  "The 
Gray  Dawn."  Great  hopes  were  awakened  a 
few  years  ago  by  the  landscapes  of  Richard 
L.  Brown;  and  the  portrait  work  of  Edwin  A. 
Harleston  is  destined  to  become  better  and 
better  known.  William  E.  Scott,  of  Indian- 
apolis, is  becoming  more  and  more  distinguished 
in  mural  work,  landscape,  and  portraiture,  and 
among  all  the  painters  of  the  race  now  working 
in  this  country  is  outstanding.  He  has  spent 
several  years  hi  Paris.  "La  Pauvre  Voisine," 
accepted  by  the  Salon  in  1912,  was  afterwards 
bought  by  the  Argentine  government.  A  sec- 
ond picture  exhibited  in  the  Salon  hi  1913,  "La 
Misere,"  was  reproduced  in  the  French  cata- 
logue and  took  first  prize  at  the  Indiana  State 
Fair  the  next  year.  "La  Connoisseure"  was 
exhibited  in  the  Royal  Academy  in  London  in 
1913.  Mr.  Scott  has  done  the  mural  work  in 
ten  public  schools  in  Chicago,  four  in  Indian- 
apolis, and  especially  was  he  commissioned  by 
*he  city  of  Indianapolis  to  decorate  two  units 


HENRY    O.   TANNER 


Painters. — Henry  0.  Tanner       106 

in  the  city  hospital,  this  task  embracing  three 
hundred  life-size  figures.  Some  of  his  effects 
in  coloring  are  very  striking,  and  in  several  of 
his  recent  pictures  he  has  emphasized  racial 
subjects. 

The  painter  of  assured  fame  and  command- 
ing position  is  Henry  Ossawa  Tanner. 

The  early  years  of  this  artist  were  a  record 
of  singular  struggle  and  sacrifice.  Born  in 
Pittsburgh  in  1859,  the  son  of  a  minister  of 
very  limited  means,  he  received  his  early  edu- 
cation in  Philadelphia.  For  years  he  had  to 
battle  against  uncertain  health.  In  his  thir- 
teenth year,  seeing  an  artist  at  work,  he  decided 
that  he  too  would  become  a  painter,  and  he 
afterwards  became  a  student  at  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  While  still  a 
very  young  man,  he  attempted  drawings  of 
all  sorts  and  sent  these  to  various  New  York 
publishers,  only  to  see  them  promptly  returned. 
A  check,  however,  for  forty  dollars  for  one  that 
did  not  return  encouraged  him,  and  a  picture, 
"A  Lion  at  Home,"  from  the  exhibition  of  the 
Academy  of  Design,  brought  eighty  dollars. 
He  now  became  a  photographer  in  Atlanta, 
Ga.,  but  met  with  no  real  success;  and  for 


106   The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

two  years  he  taught  drawing  at  Clark  Univer- 
sity in  Atlanta.  In  this  period  came  a  summer 
of  struggle  in  the  mountains  of  North  Caro- 
lina, and  the  knowledge  that  a  picture  that 
had  originally  sold  for  fifteen  dollars  had 
brought  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  at  an 
auction  in  Philadelphia.  Desiring  now  to  go 
to  Europe,  and  being  encouraged  by  Bishop 
and  Mrs.  Hartzell,  the  young  painter  gave  in 
Cincinnati  an  exhibition  of  his  work.  The  ex- 
hibition failed;  not  a  picture  was  regularly 
sold.  Bishop  and  Mrs.  Hartzell,  however, 
gave  the  artist  a  sum  for  the  entire  collection, 
and  thus  equipped  he  set  sail  for  Rome,  January 
4,  1891,  going  by  way  of  Liverpool  and  Paris. 
In  the  story  of  his  career  that  he  contributed 
to  the  World's  Work  some  years  ago,  Mr. 
Tanner  gave  an  interesting  account  of  hia 
early  days  in  Paris.  Acquaintance  with  the 
great  French  capital  induced  him  to  abandon 
thoughts  of  going  to  Rome;  but  there  followed 
five  years  of  pitiless  economy,  broken  only 
by  a  visit  to  Philadelphia,  where  he  sold  some 
pictures.  He  was  encouraged,  however,  by 
Benjamin  Constant  and  studied  in  the  Julien 
Academy.  In  his  early  years  he  had  given 


Painters. — Henry  0.  Tanner       107 

attention  to  animals  and  landscape,  but  more 
and  more  he  was  drawn  towards  religious  sub- 
jects. " Daniel  in  the  Lions'  Den"  in  the  Salon 
in  1896  brought  "honorable  mention,"  the 
artist's  first  official  recognition.  He  was  in- 
spired, and  very  soon  afterwards  he  made  his 
first  visit  to  Palestine,  the  land  that  was  after- 
wards to  mean  so  much  to  him  in  his  work. 
"The  Resurrection  of  Lazarus,"  in  1897,  was 
bought  by  the  French  government,  and  now 
hangs  in  the  Luxembourg.  The  enthusiasm 
awakened  by  this  picture  was  so  great  that  a 
friend  wrote  to  the  painter  at  Venice:  "Come 
home,  Tanner,  to  see  the  crowds  behold  your 
picture."  After  twenty  years  of  heart-breaking 
effort  Henry  Tanner  had  become  a  recognized 
artist.  His  later  career  is  a  part  of  the  history 
of  the  world's  art.  He  won  a  third-class  medal  at 
the  Salon  in  1897,  a  second-class  medal  in 
1907,  second-class  medals  at  the  Paris  Exposi- 
tion in  1900,  at  the  Buffalo  Exposition  in  1901, 
and  at  the  St.  Louis  Exposition  in  1904,  a 
gold  medal  at  San  Francisco  in  1915,  the 
Walter  Lippincott  Prize  in  Philadelphia  in 
1900,  and  the  Harris  Prize  of  five  hundred 
dollars,  in  1906,  for  the  best  picture  in  the 


108  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

annual  exhibition  of  American  paintings  at  the 
Chicago  Art  Institute. 

Mr.  Tanner's  later  life  has  been  spent  in 
Paris,  with  trips  to  the  Far  East,  to  Palestine, 
to  Egypt,  to  Algiers,  and  Morocco.  Some 
years  ago  he  joined  the  colony  of  artists  at 
Trepied,  where  he  has  built  a  commodious 
home  and  studio.  Miss  MacChesney  has  de- 
scribed this  for  us:  "His  studio  is  an  ideal 
workroom,  being  high-ceilinged,  spacious,  and 
having  the  least  possible  furniture,  utterly  free 
from  masses  of  useless  studio  stuff  and  para- 
phernalia. The  walls  are  of  a  light  gray,  and 
at  one  end  hangs  a  fine  tapestry.  Oriental 
carved  wooden  screens  are  at  the  doors  and 
windows.  Leading  out  of  it  is  a  small  room 
having  a  domed  ceiling  and  picturesque  high 
windows.  In  this  simply  furnished  room  he 
often  poses  his  models,  painting  himself  in  the 
large  studio,  the  sliding  door  between  being  a 
small  one.  He  can  often  make  use  of  lamp- 
light effects,  the  daylight  in  the  larger  room 
not  interfering."  Within  recent  years  the 
artist  has  kept  pace  with  some  of  the  newer 
schools  by  brilliant  experimentation  in  color 
and  composition.  Moonlight  scenes  appeal 


Painters. — Henry  0.  Tanner       109 

to  him  most.  He  seldom  paints  other  than 
biblical  subjects,  except  perhaps  a  portrait 
such  as  that  of  the  Khedive  or  Rabbi  Wise. 
A  landscape  may  attract  him,  but  it  is  sure 
to  be  idealized.  He  is  thoroughly  romantic 
in  tone,  and  in  spirit,  if  not  in  technique, 
there  is  much  to  connect  him  with  Holman 
Hunt,  the  Pre-Raphaelite  painter.  In  fact  he 
long  had  in  mind,  even  if  he  has  not  actually 
worked  out,  a  picture  entitled,  "The  Scape- 
goat." 

"The  Annunciation,"  as  well  as  "The  Res- 
urrection of  Lazarus,"  was  bought  by  the  French 
government;  and  "The  Two  Disciples  at  the 
Tomb"  was  bought  by  the  Chicago  Art  In- 
stitute. "The  Bagpipe  Lesson"  and  "The 
Banjo  Lesson"  are  in  the  library  at  Hampton 
Institute.  Other  prominent  titles  are:  "Christ 
and  Nicodemus,"  "Jews  Waiting  at  the  Wall 
of  Solomon,"  "Stephen  Before  the  Council," 
"Moses  and  the  Burning  Bush,"  "The  Mothers 
of  the  Bible"  (a  series  of  five  paintings  of 
Mary,  Hagar,  Sarah,  Rachel,  and  the  mother 
of  Moses,  that  marked  the  commencement  of 
paintings  containing  all  or  nearly  all  female 
figures),  "Christ  at  the  Home  of  Mary  and 


110  The  Negro  in  1/iterature  and  Art 

Martha,"  "The  Return  of  the  Holy  Women," 
and  "The  Five  Virgins."  Of  "Christ  and  His 
Disciples  on  the  Road  to  Bethany,"  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  of  all  the  pictures  for 
subdued  coloring,  the  painter  says,  "I  have 
taken  the  tradition  that  Christ  never  spent 
a  day  in  Jerusalem,  but  at  the  close  of  day 
went  to  Bethany,  returning  to  the  city  of 
strife  in  the  morning."  Of  "A  Flight  into 
Egypt"  he  says:  "Never  shall  I  forget  the 
magnificence  of  two  Persian  Jews  that  I  once 
saw  at  Rachel's  Tomb;  what  a  magnificent 
'Abraham*  either  one  of  them  would  have 
made!  Nor  do  I  forget  a  ride  one  stormy 
Christmas  night  to  Bethlehem.  Dark  clouds 
swept  the  moonlit  skies  and  it  took  little  im- 
agination to  close  one's  eyes  to  the  flight  of 
time  and  see  in  those  hurrying  travelers  the 
crowds  that  hurried  Bethlehemward  on  that 
memorable  night  of  the  Nativity,  or  to  trans- 
pose the  scene  and  see  in  each  hurrying  group 
'A  Flight  into  Egypt.'"  As  to  which  one  of 
all  these  pictures  excels  the  others  critics  are 
not  in  perfect  agreement.  "The  Resurrection 
of  Lazurus"  is  hi  subdued  coloring,  while 
"The  Annunciation"  is  noted  for  its  effects  of 


Painters. — Henry  0.  Tanner       111 

light  and  shade.  This  latter  picture  must  in 
any  case  rank  very  high  in  any  consideration 
of  the  painter's  work.  It  is  a  powerful  por- 
trayal of  the  Virgin  at  the  moment  when  she 
learns  of  her  great  mission. 

Mr.  Tanner  has  the  very  highest  ideals  for 
his  art.  These  could  hardly  be  better  stated 
than  in  his  own  words:  "It  has  very  often 
seemed  to  me  that  many  painters  of  religious 
subjects  (in  our  time)  seem  to  forget  that 
their  pictures  should  be  as  much  works  of  art 
(regardless  of  the  subject)  as  are  other  paint- 
ings with  less  holy  subjects.  To  suppose  that 
the  fact  of  the  religious  painter  having  a  more 
elevated  subject  than  his  brother  artist  makes 
it  unnecessary  for  him  to  consider  his  picture 
as  an  artistic  production,  or  that  he  can  be 
less  thoughtful  about  a  color  harmony,  for  in- 
stance, than  he  who  selects  any  other  subject, 
simply  proves  that  he  is  less  of  an  artist  than 
he  who  gives  the  subject  his  best  attention." 
Certainly,  no  one  could  ever  accuse  Henry 
Tanner  of  insincere  workmanship.  His  whole 
career  is  an  inspiration  and  a  challenge  to 
aspiring  painters,  and  his  work  is  a  monument 
of  sturdy  endeavor  and  exalted  achievement. 


XI 

SCULPTORS. — META  WARRICK  PULLER 

IN  sculpture,  as  well  as  in  painting,  there 
has  been  a  beginning  of  highly  artistic 
achievement.  The  first  person  to  come  into 
prominence  was  Edmonia  Lewis,  born  in  New 
York  in  1845.  A  sight  of  the  statue  of  Franklin, 
in  Boston,  inspired  within  this  young  woman 
tie  desire  also  to  "make  a  stone  man."  Gar- 
rison introduced  her  to  a  sculptor  who  encour- 
aged her  and  gave  her  a  few  suggestions,  but 
altogether  she  received  little  instruction  hi  her 
art.  In  1865  she  attracted  considerable  at- 
tention by  a  bust  of  Robert  Gould  Shaw, 
exhibited  hi  Boston.  In  this  same  year  she 
went  to  Rome  to  continue  her  studies,  and  two 
years  later  took  up  her  permanent  residence 
there.  Among  her  works  are:  "The  Freed- 
woman,"  "The  Death  of  Cleopatra"  (exhibited 
at  the  exposition  in  Philadelphia  in  1876), 

"Asleep,"  "The  Marriage  of  Hiawatha,"  and 

112 


META  WAHRICK  FULLER 


Sculptors. — Meta  Warrick  Fuller   118 

"Madonna  with  the  Infant  Christ."  Amorg 
her  busts  in  terra  cotta  are  those  of  JoLn 
Brown,  Charles  Sumner,  Lincoln,  and  Long- 
fellow. Most  of  the  work  of  Edmonia  Lewis 
is  in  Europe.  More  recently  the  work  of  Mrs. 
May  Howard  Jackson,  of  Washington,  htis 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  discerning.  This 
sculptor  has  made  several  busts,  among  her 
subjects  being  Rev.  F.  J.  Grimk6  and  Dr. 
DuBois,  and  "Mother  and  Child"  is  one  of 
her  best  studies.  Bertina  Lee,  of  Trenton, 
N.  J.,  is  one  of  the  promising  young  sculptors. 
She  is  from  the  Trenton  Art  School  and  his 
already  won  several  valuable  prizes. 

The  sculptor  at  the  present  time  of  assured 
position  is  Meta  Vaux  Warrick  Fuller. 

Meta  Vaux  Warrick  was  born  in  Philadelphia, 
June  9,  1877.  She  first  compelled  serious 
recognition  of  her  talent  by  her  work  in  the 
Pennsylvania  School  of  Industrial  Art,  for 
which  she  had  won  a  scholarship,  and  which 
she  attended  for  four  years.  Here  one  of  her 
first  original  pieces  in  clay  was  a  head  of 
Medusa,  which,  with  its  hanging  jaw,  beads  of 
gore,  and  eyes  starting  from  their  sockets, 
marked  her  as  a  sculptor  of  the  horrible.  In 


114  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

her  graduating  year,  1898,  she  won  a  prize 
for  metal  work  by  a  crucifix  upon  which  hung 
the  figure  of  Christ  torn  by  anguish,  also  honor- 
able mention  for  her  work  in  modeling.  In 
her  post-graduate  year  she  won  the  George  K. 
Crozier  first  prize  for  the  best  general  work  hi 
modeling  for  the  year,  her  particular  piece 
being  the  "Procession  of  Arts  and  Crafts." 
In  1899  the  young  student  went  to  Paris,  where 
she  worked  and  studied  for  three  years,  chiefly 
at  Colarossi's  Academy.  Her  work  brought 
her  in  contact  with  St.  Gaudens  and  other 
artists;  and  finally  there  came  a  day  when 
the  great  Rodin  himself,  thrilled  by  the  jjgure 
in  "Secret  Sorrow,"  a  man  represented  as  eat- 
ing his  heart  out,  in  the  attitude  of  a  father 
beamed  upon  the  young  woman  and  said, 
' Mademoiselle,  you  are  a  sculptor;  you  have 
the  sense  of  farm."  "The  Wretched,"  one  of 
the  artist's  masterpieces,  was  exhibited  in  the 
Salon  hi  1903,  and  along  with  it  went  "The 
Impenitent  Thief";  and  at  one  of  Byng's  ex- 
hibitions in  L/Art  Nouveau  galleries  it  was  re- 
marked of  her  that  "under  her  strong  and 
supple  hands  the  clay  has  leaped  into  form: 
a  whole  turbulent  world  seems  to  have  forced 


Sculptors.— M eta  Warrick  Fuller  lid 

itself  into  the  cold  and  dead  material."  On 
her  return  to  America  the  artist  resumed  her 
studies  at  the  School  of  Industrial  Art,  whining, 
hi  1904,  the  Battles  first  prize  for  pottery.  In 
1907  she  was  called  on  for  a  series  of  tableaux 
representing  the  advance  of  the  Negro,  for  the 
Jamestown  Tercentennial  Exposition,  and  later 
(1913)  for  a  group  for  the  New  York  State 
Emancipation  Proclamation  Commission.  In 
1909  Meta  Vaux  Warrick  became  the  wife  of 
Dr.  Solomon  C.  Fuller,  of  Framingham,  Mass. 
A  disastrous  fire  in  1910  destroyed  some  of 
her  most  valuable  pieces  while  they  were  in 
storage  in  Philadelphia.  Only  a  few  examples 
of  her  early  work,  that  for  one  reason  or  an- 
other happened  to  be  elsewhere,  were  saved. 
In  May,  1914,  however,  she  had  sufficiently 
recovered  from  this  blow  to  be  able  to  hold 
a  public  exhibition  of  her  work.  Mrs.  Fuller 
resides  in  Framingham,  has  a  happy  family 
of  three  boys,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  busy  life 
still  finds  some  time  for  the  practice  of  her  art. 
The  fire  of  1910  destroyed  the  folio  whig 
productions:  Secret  Sorrow,  Silenus,  (Edipus, 
Brittany  Peasant,  Primitive  Man,  two  of  the 
heads  from  Three  Gray  Women,  Peeping  Tom, 


116   The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Falstaff,  Oriental  Dancer,  Portrait  of  William 
Thomas,  The  Wrestlers,  Death  hi  the  Wind, 
De*sespoir,  The  Man  with  a  Thorn,  The  Man 
who  Laughed,  the  Two-Step,  Sketch  for  a 
Monument,  Wild  Fire,  and  the  following 
studies  hi  Afro-American  types:  An  Old  Woman, 
The  Schoolboy,  The  Comedian  (George  W. 
Walker),  The  Student,  The  Artist,  and  Mu- 
latto Child,  as  well  as  a  few  unfinished  pieces. 
Such  a  misfortune  has  only  rarely  befallen  a 
rising  artist.  Some  of  the  sculptor's  most  re- 
markable work  was  included  in  the  list  just 
given. 

Fortunately  surviving  were  the  following: 
The  Wretched  (cast  hi  bronze  and  remaining 
in  Europe),  Man  Carry  ing  Dead  Body,  Medusa, 
Procession  of  Arts  and  Crafts,  Portrait  of  the 
late  William  Still,  John  the  Baptist  (the  only 
piece  of  her,  work  made  hi  Paris  that  the 
sculptor  now  has),  Sylvia  (later  destroyed  by 
accident),  and  Study  of  Expression. 

The  exhibition  of  1914  included  the  follow- 
ing: A  Classic  Dancer,  Brittany  Peasant  (a 
reproduction  of  the  piece  destroyed),  Study  of 
Woman's  Head,  "A  Drink,  Please"  (a  statu- 
ette of  Tommy  Fuller),  Mother  and  Baby, 


Sculptors. — Meta  Warrick  Fuller   117 

A  Young  Equestrian  (Tommy  Fuller),  "So 
Big"  (Solomon  Fuller,  Jr.),  Menelik  II  of 
Abyssinia,  A  Girl's  Head,  Portrait  of  a  Child, 
The  Pianist  (portrait  of  Mrs.  Maud  Cuney 
Hare),  Portrait  of  S.  Coleridge-Taylor,  Relief 
Study  of  a  Woman's  Head,  Medallion  Por- 
trait of  a  Child  (Tommy  Fuller),  Medallion 
Portrait  of  Dr.  A.  E.  P.  Rockwell,  Statuette  of 
a  Woman,  Second  model  of  group  made  for  the 
New  York  State  Emancipation  Proclamation 
Commission  (with  two  fragments  from  the 
final  model  of  this),  Portrait  of  Dr.  A.  E.  P. 
Rockwell,  Four  Figures  (Spring,  Summer, 
Autumn,  Winter)  for  over-mantel  panel,  Por- 
trait-Bust of  a  Child  (Solomon  Fuller,  Jr.), 
Portrait-Bust  of  a  Man  (Dr.  S.  C.  Fuller), 
John  the  Baptist,  Danse  Macabre,  Menelik 
II  hi  profile,  Portrait  of  a  Woman,  The  Jester. 
Since  1914  the  artist  has  produced  several 
of  her  strongest  pieces.  "Peace  Halting  the  o 
Ruthlessness  of  War"  hi  May,  1917,  took  a 
second  prize  in  a  competition  under  the  aus- 
pices of  the  Massachusetts  Branch  of  the 
Woman's  Peace  Party.  Similarly  powerful  are 
"Watching  for  Dawn,"  "Mother  and  Child," 
"Immigrant  hi  America,"  and  "The  Silent 


118  TJie  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Appeal."  Noteworthy,  too,  are  "The  Flower- 
Holder,"  "The  Fountain-Boy,"  and  "Life  in 
Quest  of  Peace."  The  sculptor  has  also  pro- 
duced numerous  statuettes,  novelties,  etc.,  for 
commercial  purposes,  and  just  now  she  is  at 
work  on  a  motherhood  series. 

From  time  to  tune  one  observes  hi  this 
enumeration  happy  subjects.  Such,  for  in- 
stance, are  "The  Dancing  Girl,"  "The  Wres- 
tlers," and  "A  Young  Equestrian."  These  are 
frequently  winsome,  but,  as  will  be  shown  hi 
a  moment,  they  are  not  the  artist's  character- 
istic productions.  Nor  was  the  Jamestown 
series  of  tableaux.  This  was  a  succession  of 
fourteen  groups  (originally  intended  for  seven- 
teen) containing  hi  all  one  hundred  and  fifty 
figures.  The  purpose  was  by  the  construction 
of  appropriate  models,  dramatic  groupings,  and 
the  use  of  proper  scenic  accessories,  to  trace 
in  chronological  order  the  general  progress  of 
the  Negro  race.  The  whole,  of  course,  had  its 
peculiar  interest  for  the  occasion;  but  the 
artist  had  to  work  against  unnumbered  handi- 
caps of  every  sort;  her  work,  in  fact,  was  not 
so  much  that  of  a  sculptor  as  a  designer;  and, 
while  the  whole  production  took  considerable 


Sculptors. — Mela  Warrick  Fuller   119 

energy,  she  has  naturally  never  regarded  it 
as  her  representative  work. 

Certain  productions,  however,  by  reason  of 
their  unmistakable  show  of  genius,  call  for 
special  consideration.  These  are  invariably 
tragic  or  serious  in  tone. 

Prime  hi  order,  and  many  would  say  hi 
power,  is  "The  Wretched."  Seven  figures 
representing  as  many  forms  of  human  anguish 
greet  the  eye.  A  mother  yearns  for  the  loved 
ones  she  has  lost.  An  old  man,  wasted  by 
hunger  and  disease,  waits  for  death.  Another, 
bowed  by  shame,  hides  his  face  from  the  sun. 
A  sick  child  is  suffering  from  some  terrible 
hereditary  trouble;  a  youth  realizes  with  de- 
spair that  the  task  before  him  is  too  great  for 
his  strength;  and  a  woman  is  afflicted  with 
some  mental  disease.  Crowning  all  is  the 
philosopher,  who,  suffering  through  sympathy 
with  the  others,  realizes  his  powerlessness  to 
relieve  them  and  gradually  sinks  into  the  stoni- 
ness  of  despair. 

"The  Impenitent  Thief,"  admitted  to  the 
Salon  along  with  "The  Wretched,"  was  de- 
molished in  1904,  after  being  subjected  to  a 
series  of  unhappy  accidents.  It  also  defied 


120  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

convention.  Heroic  in  size,  the  thief  hung  on 
the  cross,  all  the  while  distorted  by  anguish. 
Hardened,  unsympathetic,  blasphemous,  he  was 
still  superb  in  his  presumption,  and  he  was 
one  of  the  artist's  most  powerful  conceptions. 

"Man  Carrying  Dead  Body"  portrays  a 
scene  from  a  battlefield.  In  it  the  sculptor 
has  shown  the  length  to  which  duty  will  spur 
one  on.  A  man  bears  across  his  shoulder  the 
body  of  a  comrade  that  has  evidently  lain  on 
the  battlefield  for  days,  and  though  the  thing 
is  horrible,  he  lashes  it  to  his  back  and  totters 
under  the  great  weight  until  he  can  find  a  place 
for  decent  burial.  To  every  one  there  comes 
such  a  duty;  each  one  has  his  own  burden  to 
bear  in  silence. 

Two  earlier  pieces,  "Secret  Sorrow,"  and 
"CEdipus,"  had  the  same  marked  character- 
istics. The  first  represented  a  man,  worn  and 
gaunt,  as  actually  bending  his  head  and  eating 
out  his  own  heart.  The  figure  was  the  per- 
sonification of  lost  ambition,  shattered  ideals, 
and  despair.  For  "CEdipus"  the  sculptor 
chose  the  hero  of  the  old  Greek  legend  at  the 
moment  when,  realizing  that  he  has  killed  his 
father  and  married  his  mother,  he  tears  his 


Sculptors. — Meta  Warrick  Fuller    121 

eyes  out.  The  artist's  later  conception,  "Three 
Gray  Women,"  from  the  legend  of  Perseus, 
was  in  similar  vein.  It  undertook  to  portray 
the  Greece,  the  three  sisters  who  had  but  one 
eye  and  one  tooth  among  them. 

Perhaps  the  most  haunting  creation  of  Mrs. 
Fuller  is  "John  the  Baptist."  With  head 
slightly  upraised  and  with  eyes  looking  into 
the  eternal,  the  prophet  rises  above  all  sordid 
earthly  things  and  soars  into  the  divine.  All 
faith  and  hope  and  love  are  in  his  face,  all 
poetry  and  inspiration  in  his  eyes.  It  is  a 
conception  that,  once  seen,  can  never  be  for- 
gotten. 

The  second  model  of  the  group  for  the  New 
York  State  Emancipation  Proclamation  Com- 
mission (two  feet  high,  the  finished  group  as 
exhibited  being  eight  feet  high)  represents  a 
recently  emancipated  Negro  youth  and  maiden 
standing  beneath  a  gnarled,  decapitated  tree 
that  has  the  semblance  of  a  human  hand 
stretched  over  them.  Humanity  is  pushing 
them  out  into  the  world,  while  at  the  same 
time  the  hand  of  Fate,  with  obstacles  and 
drawbacks,  is  restraining  them  in  the  exer- 
cise of  then*  new  freedom.  In  the  attitudes 


188   The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

of  the  two  figures  is  strikingly  portrayed  the 
uncertainty  of  those  embarking  on  a  new  life, 
and  in  their  countenances  one  reads  all  the 
eagerness  and  the  courage  and  the  hope  that 
is  theirs.  The  whole  is  one  of  the  artist's 
most  ambitious  efforts. 

"Immigrant  in  America"  was  inspired  by  two 
lines  from  Robert  Haven  Schauffler's  "Scum 
of  the  Earth": 

Children  in  whose  frail  arms  shall  rest 
Prophets  and  singers  and  saints  of  the  West. 

An  American  mother,  the  parent  of  one  strong 
healthy  child,  is  seen  welcoming  the  immigrant 
mother  of  many  children  to  the  land  of  plenty. 
The  work  is  capable  of  wide  application.  Along 
with  it  might  be  mentioned  a  suffrage  medallion 
and  a  smaller  piece,  "The  Silent  Appeal." 
This  last  is  a  very  strong  piece  of  work.  It 
represents  the  mother  capable  of  producing 
and  caring  for  three  children  as  making  a  silent 
request  for  the  suffrage  (or  peace,  or  justice, 
or  any  other  noble  cause).  The  work  is  char- 
acterized by  a  singular  note  of  dignity. 

"Peace  Halting  the  Ruthlessness  of  War," 
the  recent  prize  piece,  represents  War  as 


Sculptors. — Meta  Warrick  Fuller   123 

mounted  on  a  mighty  steed  and  trampling  to 
death  helpless  human  beings,  while  in  one  hand 
he  bears  a  spear  on  which  he  has  impaled  the 
head  of  one  of  his  victims.  As  he  goes  on  in 
what  seems  his  irresistible  career  Peace  meets 
him  on  the  way  and  commands  him  to  cease 
his  ravages.  The  work  as  exhibited  was  in 
gray-green  wax  and  treated  its  subject  with 
remarkable  spirit.  It  must  take  rank  as  one 
of  the  four  or  five  of  the  strongest  productions 
of  the  artist. 

Meta  Warrick  Fuller's  work  may  be  said  to 
fall  into  two  divisions,  the  romantic  and  the 
social.  The  first  is  represented  by  such  things 
as  "The  Wretched"  and  "Secret  Sorrow/'  the 
second  by  "Immigrant  hi  America"  and  "The 
Silent  Appeal."  The  transition  may  be  seen 
in  "Watching  for  Dawn,"  a  group  that  shows 
seven  figures,  in  various  attitudes  of  prayer, 
watchfulness,  and  resignation,  as  watching  for 
the  coming  of  daylight,  or  peace.  In  technique 
this  is  like  "The  Wretched,"  hi  spirit  it  is  like 
the  later  work.  It  is  as  if  the  sculptor's  own 
seer,  John  the  Baptist,  had,  by  his  vision,  sum- 
moned her  away  from  the  ghastly  and  horrible 
to  the  everyday  problems  of  needy  humanity. 


124   The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

There  are  many,  however,  who  hope  that  she 
will  not  utterly  forsake  the  field  in  which  she 
first  became  famous.  Her  early  work  is  not 
delicate  or  pretty;  it  is  gruesome  and  terrible; 
but  it  is  also  intense  and  vital,  and  from  it 
speaks  the  very  tragedy  of  the  Negro  race.  . 


XII 

MUSIC 

HPHE  foremost  name  on  the  roll  of  Negro 
1  composers  is  that  of  a  man  whose  home 
was  in  England,  but  who  in  so  many  ways 
identified  himself  with  the  Negroes  of  the 
United  States  that  he  deserves  to  be  consid- 
ered here.  He  visited  America,  found  the  in- 
spiration for  much  of  his  best  work  in  African 
themes,  and  his  name  at  once  comes  to  mind 
in  any  consideration  of  the  history  of  the 
Negro  in  music. 

Samuel  Coleridge-Taylor*  (1875-1912)  was 
born  in  London,  the  son  of  a  physician  who 
was  a  native  of  Sierra  Leone,  and  an  English 
mother.  He  began  the  study  of  the  violin 
when  he  was  no  more  than  six  years  old,  and 
as  he  grew  older  he  emphasized  more  and  more 

*  This  account  of  Coleridge-Taylor  is  based  largely,  but 
not  wholly,  upon  the  facts  as  given  in  Grove's  Dictionary  of 
Music  (1910  edition,  Macmillan).    The  article  on  the  com 
poser  ends  with  a  fairly  complete  list  of  works  up  to  1910. 

125 


The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

the  violin  and  the  piano.  At  the  age  of  ten  he 
entered  the  choir  of  St.  George's,  at  Croydon, 
and  a  little  later  became  alto  singer  at  St. 
Mary  Magdalene's,  Croydon.  In  1890  he  en- 
tered the  Royal  College  of  Music  as  a  student 
of  the  violin;  and  he  also  became  a  student  of 
Stanford's  in  composition,  in  which  department 
he  won  a  scholarship  hi  1893.  In  1894  he  was 
graduated  with  honor.  His  earliest  published 
work  was  the  anthem,  "In  Thee,  O  Lord" 
(1892);  but  he  gave  frequent  performances  of 
chamber  music  at  student  concerts  hi  his 
earlier  years;  one  of  his  symphonies  was  pro- 
duced in  1896  under  Stanford's  direction,  and 
"a  quintet  for  clarinet  and  strings  in  F  sharp 
minor  (played  at  the  Royal  College  in  1895) 
was  given  hi  Berlin  by  the  Joachim  Quartet, 
and  a  string  quartet  in  D  minor  dates  from 
1896."  Coleridge-Taylor  became  world-famous 
by  the  production  of  the  first  part  of  his 
"Hiawatha"  trilogy,  "Hiawatha's  Wedding- 
Feast,"  at  the  Royal  College,  November  11, 
1898.  He  at  once  took  rank  as  one  of  the 
foremost  living  English  composers.  The  second 
part  of  the  trilogy,  "The  Death  of  Minne- 
haha,"  was  given  at  the  North  Staffordshire 


Music  187 

Festival  in  the  autumn  of  1899;  and  the  third, 
"Hiawatha's  Departure,"  by  the  Royal  Choral 
Society,  in  Albert  Hall,  March  22,  1900.  The 
whole  work  was  a  tremendous  success  such 
as  even  the  composer  himself  never  quite 
duplicated.  Requests  for  new  compositions  for 
festival  purposes  now  became  numerous,  and 
hi  response  to  the  demand  were  produced 
"The  Blind  Girl  of  Castel-Cuille*"  (Leeds, 
1901),  "Meg  Blane"  (Sheffield,  1902),  "The 
Atonement"  (Hereford,  1903),  and  "Kubla 
Khan"  (Handel  Society,  1906).  Coleridge- 
Taylor  also  wrote  the  incidental  music  for  the 
four  romantic  plays  by  Stephen  Phillips  pro- 
duced at  His  Majesty's  Theatre,  as  follows: 
"Herod,"  1900;  "Ulysses,"  1901;  "Nero," 
1902;  "Faust,"  1908;  as  well  as  incidental 
music  for  "Othello"  (the  composition  for  the 
orchestra  being  later  adapted  as  a  suite  for 
pianoforte),  and  for  "A  Tale  of  Old  Japan," 
the  words  of  which  were  by  Alfred  Noyes. 
In  1904  he  was  appointed  conductor  of  the 
Handel  Society.  The  composer's  most  dis- 
tinctive work  is  probably  that  reflecting  his 
interest  in  the  Negro  folk-song.  "Character- 
istic of  the  melancholy  beauty,  barbaric  color, 


128  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

charm  of  musical  rhythm  and  vehement  passion 
of  the  true  Negro  music  are  his  symphonic 
pianoforte  selections  based  on  Negro  melodies 
from  Africa  and  America:  the  ' African  Suite,' 
a  group  of  pianoforte  pieces,  the  'African  Ro- 
mances' (words  by  Paul  L.  Dunbar),  the 
'Songs  of  Slavery/  'Three  Choral  Ballads' 
and  'African  Dances/  and  a  suite  for  violin 
and  pianoforte."  *  The  complete  list  of  the 
works  of  Coleridge-Taylor  would  include  also 
the  following:  "Southern  Love  Songs," 
' '  Dream-Lovers ' '  (an  operetta) ,  ' '  Gipsy  Suite ' ' 
(for  violin  and  piano),  "Solemn  Prelude"  (for 
orchestra,  first  produced  at  the  Worcester  Fes- 
tival, 1899),  "NourmahaFs  Song  and  Dance" 
(for  piano),  "Scenes  from  an  Everyday  Ro- 
mance," "Ethiopia  Saluting  the  Colors"  (con- 
cert march  for  orchestra),  "Five  Choral  Bal- 
lads" to  words  by  Longfellow  (produced  at 
the  Norwich  Festival,  1905),  "Moorish  Dance" 
(for  piano),  "Six  Sorrow  Songs,"  several  vocal 
duets,  and  the  anthems,  "Now  Late  on  the 
Sabbath  Day,"  "By  the  Waters  of  Babylon," 
"The  Lord  is  My  Strength,"  "Lift  Up  Your 
Heads,"  "Break  Forth  into  Joy,"  and  "O 

*  Crisis,  October,  1912. 


Music  129 

Ye  that  Love  the  Lord."  Among  the  things 
published  since  his  death  are  his  "Viking 
Song,"  best  adapted  for  a  male  chorus,  and  a 
group  of  pianoforte  and  choral  works. 

In  America  the  history  of  conscious  musical 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  Negro  goes  back  even 
many  years  before  the  Civil  War.  "Some  of 
the  most  interesting  music  produced  by  the 
Negro  slaves  was  handed  down  from  the  days 
when  the  French  and  Spanish  had  possession 
of  Louisiana.  From  the  free  Negroes  of 
Louisiana  there  sprang  up,  during  slavery  days, 
a  number  of  musicians  and  artists  who  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  foreign  countries  to 
which  they  removed  because  of  the  prejudice 
which  existed  against  colored  people.  Among 
them  was  Eugene  Warburg,  who  went  to 
Italy  and  distinguished  himself  as  a  sculptor. 
Another  was  Victor  Se"jour,  who  went  to  Paris 
and  gained  distinction  as  a  poet  and  composer 
of  tragedy.  The  Lambert  family,  consisting 
of  seven  persons,  were  noted  as  musicians. 
Richard  Lambert,  the  father,  was  a  teacher  of 
music;  Lucien  Lambert,  a  son,  after  much 
hard  study,  became  a  composer  of  music. 
Edmund  Dede,  who  was  born  in  New  Orleans 


ISO   The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

in  1829,  learned  while  a  youth  to  play  a  number 
of  instruments.  He  accumulated  enough  money 
to  pay  his  passage  to  France.  Here  he  took 
up  a  special  study  of  music,  and  finally  became 
director  of  the  orchestra  of  L*  Alcazar,  in  Bor- 
deaux, France."  * 

The  foremost  composer  of  the  race  to-day  is 
Harry  T.  Burleigh,  who  within  the  last  few 
years  has  won  a  place  not  only  among  the 
most  prominent  song-writers  of  America,  but 
of  the  world.  He  has  emphasized  compositions 
in  classical  vein,  his  work  displaying  great 
technical  excellence.  Prominent  among  his 
later  songs  are  "Jean,"  the  "Saracen  Songs," 
"One  Year  (1914-1915),"  the  "Five  Songs"  of 
Laurence  Hope,  set  to  music,  "The  Young 
Warrior"  (the  words  of  which  were  written  by 
James  W.  Johnson),  and  "Passionale"  (four 
songs  for  a  tenor  voice,  the  words  of  which 
were  also  by  Mr.  Johnson).  Nearly  two  years 
ago,  at  an  assemblage  of  the  Italo-American 
Relief  Committee  at  the  Biltmore  Hotel,  New 
York,  Mr.  Amato,  of  the  Metropolitan  Opera, 
sang  with  tremendous  effect,  "The  Young 
Warrior,"  and  the  Italian  version  has  later 

*  Washington:    "The  Story  of  the  Negro,"  II,  276-7. 


HAimY   T.    BUnLEUJH 


Music  131 

been  used  all  over  Italy  as  a  popular  song  in 
connection  with  the  war.  Of  somewhat  stronger 
quality  even  than  most  of  these  songs  are  "The 
Grey  Wolf,"  to  words  by  Arthur  Symons,  "The 
Soldier,"  a  setting  of  Rupert  Brooke's  well 
known  sonnet,  and  "Ethiopia  Saluting  the 
Colors."  An  entirely  different  division  of  Mr. 
Burleigh's  work,  hardly  less  important  than 
his  songs,  is  his  various  adaptations  of  the  Negro 
melodies,  especially  for  choral  work;  and  he 
assisted  Dvorak  in  his  "New  World  Sym- 
phony," based  on  the  Negro  folk-songs.  For 
his  general  achievement  in  music  he  was,  in 
1917,  awarded  the  Spingarn  Medal.  His  work 
as  a  singer  is  reserved  for  later  treatment. 

Another  prominent  composer  is  Will  Marion 
Cook.  Mr.  Cook's  tune  has  been  largely  given 
to  the  composition  of  popular  music;  at  the 
same  tune,  however,  he  has  produced  numerous 
songs  that  bear  the  stamp  of  genius.  In  1912 
a  group  of  his  tuneful  and  characteristic  pieces 
was  published  by  Schirmer.  Generally  his 
work  exhibits  not  only  unusual  melody,  but 
also  excellent  technique.  J.  Rosamond  John- 
son is  also  a  composer  with  many  original 
ideas.  Like  Mr.  Cook,  for  years  he  gave  much 


132  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

attention  to  popular  music.  More  recently  he 
has  been  director  of  the  New  York  Music 
Settlement,  the  first  in  the  country  for  the 
general  cultivation  and  popularizing  of  Negro 
music.  Among  his  later  songs  are:  "I  Told 
My  Love  to  the  Roses,"  and  "  Morning,  Noon, 
and  Night."  In  pure  melody  Mr.  Johnson  is 
not  surpassed  by  any  other  musician  of  the 
race  to-day.  His  long  experience  with  large 
orchestras,  moreover,  has  given  him  unusual 
knowledge  of  instrumentation.  Carl  Diton, 
organist  and  pianist,  has  so  far  been  interested 
chiefly  in  the  transcription  for  the  organ  of 
representative  Negro  melodies.  "Swing  Low, 
Sweet  Chariot"  was  published  by  Schinner  and 
followed  by  "Four  Jubilee  Songs."  R.  Nathaniel 
Dett  has  the  merit,  more  than  others,  of  at- 
tempting to  write  hi  large  form.  His  carol, 
"Listen  to  the  Lambs,"  is  especially  note- 
worthy. Representative  of  his  work  for  the 
piano  is  his  "Magnolia  Suite."  This  was  pub- 
lished by  the  Clayton  F.  Summy  Co.,  of  Chi- 
cago. As  for  the  very  young  men  of  promise, 
special  interest  attaches  to  the  work  of  Edmund 
T.  Jenkins,  of  Charleston,  S.  C.,  who  three 
years  ago  made  his  way  to  the  Royal  Academy 


Music  133 

in  London.  Able  before  he  left  to  perform 
brilliantly  on  half  a  dozen  instruments,  this 
young  man  was  soon  awarded  a  scholarship; 
hi  1916-17  he  was  awarded  a  silver  medal  for 
excellence  on  the  clarinet,  a  bronze  medal  for 
his  work  on  the  piano,  and,  against  brilliant 
competition,  a  second  prize  for  his  original 
work  hi  composition.  The  year  also  witnessed 
the  production  of  his  "Pre*lude  Religieuse"  at 
one  of  the  grand  orchestral  concerts  of  the 
Academy. 

Outstanding  pianists  are  Raymond  Augustus 
Lawson,  of  Hartford,  Conn.,  and  Hazel  Har- 
rison, now  of  New  York.  Mr.  Lawson  is  a 
true  artist.  His  technique  is  very  highly  de- 
veloped, and  his  style  causes  him  to  be  a 
favorite  concert  pianist.  He  has  more  than 
once  been  a  soloist  at  the  concerts  of  the  Hart- 
ford Philharmonic  Orchestra,  and  has  appeared 
on  other  noteworthy  occasions.  He  conducts 
at  Hartford  one  of  the  leading  studios  in  New 
England.  Miss  Harrison  has  returned  to 
America  after  years  of  study  abroad,  and  now 
conducts  a  studio  in  New  York.  She  was  a 
special  pupil  of  Busoni  and  has  appeared  hi 
many  noteworthy  recitals.  Another  prominent 


184  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

pianist  is  Roy  W.  Tibbs,  now  a  teacher  at 
Howard  University.  Helen  Hagan,  who  a  few 
years  ago  was  awarded  the  Sanford  scholarship 
at  Yale  for  study  abroad,  has  since  her  return 
from  France  given  many  excellent  recitals; 
and  Ethel  Richardson,  of  New  York,  has  had 
several  very  distinguished  teachers  and  is  in 
general  one  of  the  most  promising  of  the 
younger  performers.  While  those  that  have 
been  mentioned  could  not  possibly  be  over- 
looked, there  are  to-day  so  many  noteworthy 
pianists  that  even  a  most  competent  and  well- 
informed  musician  would  hesitate  before  passing 
judgment  upon  them.  Prominent  among  the 
organists  is  Melville  Charlton,  of  Brooklyn, 
an  associate  of  the  American  Guild  of  Organ- 
ists, who  has  now  won  for  himself  a  place 
among  the  foremost  organists  of  the  United 
States,  and  who  has  also  done  good  work  as  a 
composer.  He  is  still  a  young  man  and  from 
him  may  not  unreasonably  be  expected  many 
years  of  high  artistic  endeavor.  Two  other 
very  prominent  organists  are  William  Herbert 
Bush,  of  New  London,  Conn.,  and  Frederick 
P.  White,  of  Boston.  Mr.  Bush  has  for  thirty 
years  filled  his  position  at  the  Second  Congre- 


Music  185 

gational  Church,  of  New  London,  and  has  also 
given  much  time  to  composition.  Mr.  White, 
also  a  composer,  for  twenty-five  years  had 
charge  of  the  instrument  in  the  First  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  of  Charlestown,  Mass.  Ex- 
cellent violinists  are  numerous,  but  in  con- 
nection with  this  instrument  especially  must 
it  be  remarked  that  more  and  more  must  the 
line  of  distinction  be  drawn  between  the  work 
of  a  pleasing  and  talented  performer  and  the 
effort  of  a  conscientious  and  painstaking  artist. 
Foremost  is  Clarence  Cameron  White,  of  Bos- 
ton. Prominent  also  for  some  years  has  been 
Joseph  Douglass,  of  Washington.  Felix  Weir, 
of  Washington  and  New  York,  has  given  un- 
usual promise;  and  Kemper  Harreld,  of  Chi- 
cago and  Atlanta,  also  deserves  mention.  In 
this  general  sketch  of  those  who  have  added 
to  the  musical  achievement  of  the  race  there 
is  a  name  that  must  not  be  overlooked.  "Blind 
Tom,"  who  attracted  so  much  attention  a 
generation  ago,  deserves  notice  as  a  prodigy 
rather  than  as  a  musician  of  solid  accomplish- 
ment. His  real  name  was  Thomas  Bethune, 
and  he  was  born  hi  Columbus,  Ga.,  in  1849. 
He  was  peculiarly  susceptible  to  the  influences 


136   The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

of  nature,  and  imitated  on  the  piano  all  the 
sounds  he  knew.  Without  being  able  to  read 
a  note  he  could  play  from  memory  the  most 
difficult  compositions  of  Beethoven  and  Men- 
delssohn. In  phonetics  he  was  especially  skill- 
ful. Before  his  audiences  he  would  commonly 
invite  any  of  his  hearers  to  play  new  and 
difficult  selections,  and  as  soon  as  a  rendering 
was  finished  he  would  himself  play  the  com- 
position without  making  a  single  mistake. 

Of  those  who  have  exhibited  the  capabilities 
of  the  Negro  voice  in  song  it  is  but  natural 
that  sopranos  should  have  been  most  distin- 
guished. Even  before  the  Civil  War  the  race 
produced  one  of  the  first  rank  in  Elizabeth 
Taylor  Greenfield,  who  came  into  prominence 
in  1851.  This  artist,  born  in  Mississippi,  was 
taken  to  Philadelphia  and  there  cared  for  by 
a  Quaker  lady.  Said  the  Daily  State  Register, 
of  Albany,  after  one  of  her  concerts:  "The 
compass  of  her  marvelous  voice  embraces 
twenty-seven  notes,  reaching  from  the  sonorous 
bass  of  a  baritone  to  a  few  notes  above  even 
Jenny  Lind's  highest."  A  voice  with  a  range 
of  more  than  three  octaves  naturally  attracted 
much  attention  in  both  England  and  America, 


Music  137 

and  comparisons  with  Jenny  Lind,  then  at  the 
height  of  her  great  fame,  were  frequent.  After 
her  success  on  the  stage  Miss  Greenfield  be- 
came a  teacher  of  music  in  Philadelphia. 
Twenty-five  years  later  the  Hyers  Sisters, 
Anna  and  Emma,  of  San  Francisco,  started  on 
their  memorable  tour  of  the  continent,  whining 
some  of  their  greatest  triumphs  in  critical  New 
England.  Anna  Hyers  especially  was  remarked 
as  a  phenomenon.  Then  arose  Madame  Selika, 
a  cultured  singer  of  the  first  rank,  and  one  who, 
by  her  arias  and  operatic  work  generally,  as 
well  as  by  her  mastery  of  language,  won  great 
success  on  the  continent  of  Europe  as  well  as 
in  England  and  America.  The  careers  of  two 
later  singers  are  so  recent  as  to  be  still  fresh 
in  the  public  memory;  one  indeed  may  still 
be  heard  on  the  stage.  It  was  hi  1887  that 
Flora  Batson  entered  on  the  period  of  her 
greatest  success.  She  was  a  ballad  singer  and 
her  work  at  its  best  was  of  the  sort  that  sends 
an  audience  into  the  wildest  enthusiasm.  Her 
voice  exhibited  a  compass  of  three  octaves, 
from  the  purest,  most  clear-cut  soprano,  sweet 
and  full,  to  the  rich  round  notes  of  the  baritone 
register.  Three  or  four  years  later  than  Flora 


138  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Batson  in  her  period  of  greatest  artistic  success 
was  Mrs.  Sissieretta  Jones.  The  voice  of  this 
singer,  when  it  first  attracted  wide  attention, 
about  1893,  commanded  notice  as  one  of  un- 
usual richness  and  volume,  and  as  one  ex- 
hibiting especially  the  plaintive  quality  ever 
present  in  the  typical  Negro  voice. 

At  the  present  time  Harry  T.  Burleigh  in- 
stantly commands  attention.  For  twenty  years 
this  singer  has  been  the  baritone  soloist  at 
St.  George's  Episcopal  Church,  New  York, 
and  for  about  half  as  long  at  Temple  Emanu-El, 
the  Fifth  Avenue  Jewish  synagogue.  As  a 
concert  and  oratorio  singer  Mr.  Burleigh  has 
met  with  signal  success.  Of  the  younger  men, 
Roland  W.  Hayes,  a  tenor,  is  outstanding.  He 
has  the  temperament  of  an  artist  and  gives 
promise  of  being  able  to  justify  expectations 
awakened  by  a  voice  of  remarkable  quality. 
Within  recent  years  Mme.  Anita  Patti  Brown, 
a  product  of  the  Chicago  conservatories,  has 
also  been  prominent  as  a  concert  soloist.  She 
sings  with  simplicity  and  ease,  and  in  her 
voice  is  a  sympathetic  quality  that  makes  a 
ready  appeal  to  the  heart  of  an  audience. 
Just  at  present  Mme.  Mayme  Galloway  Byron, 


Music  1S9 

most  recently  of  Chicago,  seems  destined  within 
the  near  future  to  take  the  very  high  place 
that  she  deserves.  This  great  singer  has  but 
lately  returned,  to  America  after  years  of  study 
and  cultivation  in  Europe.  She  has  sung  hi 
the  principal  theaters  abroad  and  was  just  on 
the  eve  of  filling  an  engagement  at  the  Op4ra 
Comique  when  the  war  began  and  forced  her  to 
change  her  plans. 

In  this  general  review  of  those  who  have 
helped  to  make  the  Negro  voice  famous,  men- 
tion must  be  made  of  a  remarkable  company 
of  singers  who  first  made  the  folk-songs  of 
the  race  known  to  the  world  at  large.  In 
1871  the  Fisk  Jubilee  Singers  began  their 
memorable  progress  through  America  and  Eu- 
rope, meeting  at  first  with  scorn  and  sneers, 
but  before  long  touching  the  heart  of  the 
world  with  their  strange  music.  The  original 
band  consisted  of  four  young  men  and  five 
young  women;  hi  the  seven  years  of  the  ex- 
istence of  the  company  altogether  twenty-four 
persons  were  enrolled  hi  it.  Altogether,  these 
singers  raised  for  Fisk  University  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  secured  school 
books,  paintings,  and  apparatus  to  the  value 


140  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

of  seven  or  eight  thousand  more.  They  sang 
hi  the  United  States,  England,  Scotland,  Ire- 
land, Holland,  Switzerland,  and  Germany, 
sometimes  before  royalty.  Since  their  tune 
they  have  been  much  imitated,  but  hardly 
ever  equaled,  and  never  surpassed. 

This  review  could  hardly  close  without  men- 
tion of  at  least  a  few  other  persons  who  have 
worked  along  distinctive  lines  and  thus  con- 
tributed to  the  general  advance.  Pedro  T. 
Tinsley  is  director  of  the  Choral  Study  Club 
of  Chicago,  which  has  done  much  work  of 
real  merit.  Lulu  Vere  Childers,  director  of 
music  at  Howard  University,  is  a  contralto 
and  an  excellent  choral  director;  while  John 
W.  Work,  of  Fisk  University,  by  editing  and 
directing,  has  done  much  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  old  melodies.  Mrs.  E.  Azalia  Hack- 
ley,  for  some  years  prominent  as  a  concert 
soprano,  has  recently  given  her  tune  most 
largely  to  the  work  of  teaching  and  showing 
the  capabilities  of  the  Negro  voice.  Possessed 
of  a  splendid  musical  temperament,  she  has 
enjoyed  the  benefit  of  three  years  of  foreign 
study,  has  published  "A  Guide  to  Voice  Cul- 
ture," and  generally  inspired  many  younger 


Music 

singers  or  performers.  Mrs.  Maud  Cuney 
Hare,  of  Boston,  a  concert  pianist,  has  within 
the  last  few  years  elicited  much  favorable 
comment  from  cultured  persons  by  her  lecture- 
recitals  dealing  with  Afro  -  American  music. 
In  these  she  has  been  assisted  by  William  H. 
Richardson,  baritone  soloist  of  St.  Peter's 
Episcopal  Church,  Cambridge.  Scattered 
throughout  the  country  are  many  other  capa- 
ble teachers  or  promising  young  artists. 


xin 

GENERAL   PROGRESS,    1918-1921 

npHE  three  years  that  have  passed  since 
1  the  present  book  appeared  have  been 
years  of  tremendous  import  in  the  life  of  the 
Negro  people  of  the  United  States,  as  in- 
deed in  that  of  the  whole  nation.  In  1918 
we  were  in  the  very  midst  of  the  Great  War, 
and  not  until  the  fall  of  that  year  were  the 
divisions  of  the  Students'  Army  Training 
Corps  organized  in  our  colleges;  and  yet 
already  some  things  that  marked  the  conflict 
are  beginning  to  seem  very  long  ago. 

To  some  extent  purely  literary  and  artis- 
tic achievement  in  America  was  for  the  time 
being  retarded,  and  in  the1  case  of  the  Negro 
this  was  especially  true.  The  great  eco- 
nomic problems  raised  by  the  war  and  its 
aftermath  have  very  largely  absorbed  the 
energy  of  the  race;  and  even  if  something 

142 


General  Progress  143 

was  actually  done — as  in  a  literary  way — it 
was  not  easy  for  it  to  gain  recognition,  the 
cost  of  publication  frequently  being  pro- 
hibitive. An  enormous  amount  of  power 
yearned  for  expression,  however;  scores  and 
even*  hundreds' .of  young  people  were  laying 
solid  foundations  in  different  lines  of  art; 
and*  within  the  next  decade  we  shall  almost 
certainly  witness  a  great  fulfillment  of  their 
striving.  Yet  even  for  the  time  being  there 
are  some  things  that  cannot  pass  unnoticed. 
Of  those  who  have  received  prominent 
mention  in  the  present  book,  W.  E.  Burg- 
hardt  DuBois  and  William  Stanley  Braith- 
waite  especially  have  continued  the  kind  of 
work  of  which  they  had  already  given 
indication.  In  1920  appeared  Dr.  DuBois  *s 
"Darkwater"  (Harcourt,  Brace  &  Co.,  New 
York),  a  strong  indictment  of  the  attitude  of 
the  white  world  toward  the  Negro  and  other 
colored  peoples.  This  book  belongs  rather 
to  the  field  of  social  discussion  than  to  that 
of  pure  literature,  and  whether  one  prefers 
it  to  "The  Souls  of  Black  Folk'*  will  depend 
largely  on  whether  he  prefers  a  work  pri- 
marily in  the  wider  field  of  politics  or  one 


144       The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

especially  noteworthy  for  its  literary  qual- 
ity. Mr.  Braithwaite  has  continued  the  pub- 
lication of  his  "  Anthology  of  Magazine 
Verse"  (now  issued  annually  through  Small, 
Maynard  &  Co.,  Boston),  and  he  has  also 
issued  "The  Golden  Treasury  of  Magazine 
Verse"  (Small,  Maynard  &  Co.,  1918), 
"Victory:  Celebrated  by  Thirty-eight  Amer- 
ican Poets"  (Small,  Maynard  &  Co.,  1919), 
as  well  as  "The  Story  of  the  Great  War" 
for  young  people  (Frederick  A.  Stokes  & 
Co.,  New  York,  1919).  As-  for  the  special 
part  of  the  Negro  in  the  war,  importance 
attaches  to  Dr.  Emmett  J.  Scott's  "Official 
History  of  the  American  Negro  in  the 
World  War"  (Washington,  1919),  while  in 
biography  outstanding  is  Robert  Bussa 
Moton's  "Finding  a  Way  Out"  (Doubleday, 
Page  &  Co.,  Garden  City,  N.  Y.,  1920),  a 
work  written  in  modest  vein  and  forming  a 
distinct  contribution  to  the  history  of  the 
times. 

Of  those  poets  who  have  come  into  prom- 
inence within  the  period  now  under  review 
first  place  must  undoubtedly  be  given  to 
Claude  McKay.  This  man  was  originally  a 


General  Progress  145 

Jamaican  and  his  one  little  book  was  pub- 
lished in  London;  but  for  the  last  several 
years  he  has  made  his  home  in  the  United 
States  and  his  achievement  must  now  be 
identified  with  that  of  the  race  in  this  coun- 
try. He  has  served  a  long  apprenticeship  in 
writing,  has  a  firm  sense-  of  form,  and  only 
time  can  now  give  the  full  measure  of  his 
capabilities.  His  sonnet,  "The  Harlem 
Dancer,"  is  astonishing  in  its  artistry,  and 
another  sonnet,  "If  We  must  Die,"  is  only 
less  unusual  in  strength.  Mr.  McKay  has 
recently  brought  together  the  best  of  his 
work  in  a  slender  volume,  "Spring  in  New 
Hampshire,  and  Other  Poems"  (Grant 
Richards  &  Co.,  London,  1920).  Three 
young  men  who  sometimes  gave  interesting 
promise,  have  died1  within  the  period — 
Joseph  S.  Cotter,  Jr.,  Roscoe  C.  Jamison, 
and  Lucian  B.  Watkins.  Cotter's  "The 
Band  of  Gideon,  and  Other  Lyrics"  (The 
Cornhill  Co.,  Boston,  1918)  especially 
showed  something  of  the  freedom  of  gen- 
uine poetry;  and  mention  must  also  be 
made  of  Charles  B.  Johnson's  "Songs  of 
my  People"  (The  Cornhill  Co.,  1918),  while 


146       The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Leslie  Pickney  Hill's  "The  Wings  of  Op- 
pression" (The  Stratford  Co.,  Boston, 
1921)  brings  together  some  of  the  striking 
verse  that  this  writer  has  contributed  to 
different  periodicals  within  recent  years. 
Meanwhile  Mrs.  Georgia  Douglas  Johnson 
has  continued  the  composition  of  her  poign- 
ant lyrics,  and  Mrs.  Alice  M.  Dunbar-Nelson 
occasionally  gives  demonstration  of  her  un- 
questionable ability,  as  in  the  sonnet,  "I 
had  not  thought  of  violets  of  late"  (Crisis, 
August,  1919).  If  a  prize  were  to  be  given 
for  the  best  single  poem  produced  by  a  mem- 
ber of  the  race  within  the  last  three  years, 
the  decision  would  probably  have  to  rest 
between  this  sonnet  and  McKay's  "The 
Harlem  Dancer.*' 

In  other  fields  of  writing  special  interest 
attaches  to  the  composition  of  dramatic 
work.  Mary  Burrill  and  Mrs.  Dunbar-Nel- 
son especially  have  contributed  one-act 
plays  to  different  periodicals;  Angelina  W. 
Grimke  has  formally  published  "Rachel," 
a  play  in  three  acts  (The  Cornhill  Co., 
Boston,  1920),  while  several  teachers  and 
advanced  students  at  the  different  educa- 


General  Progress  147 

tional  institutions  are  doing  excellent  ama- 
teur work  that  will  certainly  tell  later  in  a 
larger  way.  R.  T.  Browne's  "The  Mystery 
of  Space"  (E.  P.  Button  &  Co.,  New  York, 
1920),  is  an  interesting  excursion  in  meta- 
physics; and  this  book  calls  forth  a  remark 
about  the  general  achievement  of  the  race 
in  philosophy  and  science.  These  depart- 
ments are  somewhat  bfeyond  the  province 
of  the  present  work.  It  is  worthwhile  to 
note,  however,  that  while  the  whole  field 
of  science  is  just  now  being  entered  in  a 
large  way  by  members  of  the  race,  several 
of  the  younger  men  within  the  last  decade 
have  entered  upon  work  of  the  highest  or- 
der of  original  scholarship.  No  full  study 
of  this  phase  of  development  has  yet  been 
made;  but  for  the  present  an  article  by  Dr. 
Emmett  J.  Scott,  "Scientific  Achievements 
of  Negroes"  (Southern  Workman,  July, 
1920),  will  probably  be  found  an  adequate 
summary.  Maud  Cuney  Hare  has  brought 
out  a  beautiful  anthology,  "The  Message 
of  the  Trees"  (The  Cornhill  Co.,  Boston, 
1919) ;  and  in  the  wide  field  of  literature 
mention  might  also  be  made  of  "A  Short 


148      The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

History  of  the  English  Drama,"  by  the 
author  of  the  present  book  (Harcourt, 
Brace  &  Co.,  New  York,  1921). 

The  general  attitude  in  the  presentation 
of  Negro  characters  in  the  fiction  in  the 
standard  magazines  of  the  country  has 
shown  some  progress  within  the  last  three 
years,  though  this  might  seem  to  be  fully 
offset  by  such  burlesques  as  are  given  in 
the  work  of  E.  K.  Means  and  Octavus  Boy 
Cohen,  all  of  which  but  gives  further  point 
to  the  essay  on  "The  Negro  in  American 
Fiction'*  in  this  book.  Quite  different  and 
of  much  more  sympathetic  temper  are  "The 
Shadow, "  a  novel  by  Mary  White  Ovington 
(Harcourt,  Brace  &  Co.,  New  York,  1920) 
and  George  Madden  Martin's  "Children  of 
the  Mist,"  a  collection  of  stories  about  the 
people  in  the  lowlands  of  the  South  (D. 
Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York,  1920). 

In  the  field  of  the  theatre  and  the  drama 
there  has  been  progress^  though  the  lower 
order  of  popular  comedy  still  makes  strong 
appeal;  and  of  course  all  legitimate  drama 
has  recently  had  to  meet  the  competition 
of  moving-pictures,  in  connection  with  which 


General  Progress  149 

several  members  of  the  race  have  in  one 
way  or  another  won  success.  Outstanding 
is  Noble  M.  Johnson,  originally  of  Colorado, 
a  man  of  great  personal  gifts  and  with  a 
face  and  figure  admirably  adapted  to  In- 
dian as  well  as  Negro  parts.  In  the  realm 
of  the  spoken  drama  attention  fixes  at  once 
upon  Charles  S.  Gilpin,  whose  work  is  so 
important  that  it  must  be  given  special 
and  separate  treatment.  It  is  worthy  of 
note  also  that  great  impetus  has  recently 
been  given  to  the  construction  of  play- 
houses, the  thoroughly  modern  Dunbar  The- 
atre in  Philadelphia  being  a  shining  exam- 
ple. Interesting  in  the  general  connection 
for  the  capability  that  many  of  the  partici- 
pants showed  was  the  remarkable  pageant, 
"The  Open  Door,"  first  presented  at  At- 
lanta University  and  in  the  winter  of  1920- 
21  given  in  various  cities  of  the  North  for 
the  benefit  of  this  institution. 

In  painting  and  sculpture  there  has  been 
much  promise,  but  no  one  has  appeared 
who  has  gone  beyond  the  achievement  of 
those  persons  who  had  already  won  secure 
position.  Indeed  that  would  be  a  very  dif- 


150       The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

fioult  thing  to  do.  Mr.  Tanner,  Mr.  Scott, 
Mrs.  Meta  Warrick  Fuller,  and  Mrs.  May 
Howard  Jackson  have  all  continued  their 
work.  Mr.  Tanner  has  remained  abroad, 
but  there  have  recently  been  exhibitions  of 
his  pictures  in  DCS  Moines  and  Boston,  and 
in  1919  Mrs.  Jackson  exhibited  at  the  Na- 
tional Academy  of  Design  and  at  the  show- 
ing of  the  Society  of  Independent  Artists 
at  the  Waldorf-Astoria.  In  connection  with 
sculpture,  important  is  a  labor  of  love,  a 
book,  "Emancipation  and  the  Freed  in 
American  Sculpture, "  by  Frederick  H.  M. 
Murray  (published  by  the  author,  1733  7th 
St.,  N.  W.,  Washington,  1916).  This  work 
contains  many  beautiful  illustrations  and 
deserves  the  attention  of  all  who  are  in- 
terested in  the  artistic  life  of  the  Negro 
or  in  his  portrayal  by  representative  Ameri- 
can sculptors. 

In  music  the  noteworthy  fact  is  that  there 
has  been  such  general  recognition  of  the 
value  of  Negro  music  as  was  never  ac- 
corded before,  and  impetus  toward  co-op- 
eration and  achievement  has  been  given  by 
the  new  National  Association  of  Negro  Mu- 


General  Progress  151 

sicians.  B.  Nathaniel  Dett  has  been  most 
active  and  has  probably  made  the  greatest 
advance.  His  compositions  and  the  songs 
of  Harry  T.  Burleigh  are  now  frequently 
given  a  place  on  the  programs  of  the  fore- 
most artists  in  America  and  Europe,  and 
the  present  writer  has  even  heard  them  at 
sea.  Outstanding  among  smaller  works  by 
Mr.  Dett  is  his  superb  "Chariot  Jubilee," 
designed  for  tenor  solo  and  chorus  of  mixed 
voices,  with  accompaniment  of  organ,  piano, 
and  orchestra.  To  the  Southern  Workman 
(April  and  May,  1918)  this  composer  con- 
tributed two  articles.  "The  Emancipation 
of  Negro  Music "  and  "Negro  Music  of  the 
Present";  and,  while  continuing  his  studies 
at  Harvard  University  in  1920,  under  the 
first  of  these  titles  he  won  a  Bowdoin  essay 
prize,  and  for  a  chorus  without  accompani- 
ment, "Don't  be  weary,  traveler,'*  he  also 
won  the  Francis  Boott  prize  of  $100.  Mel- 
ville Charlton,  the  distinguished  organist, 
has  gained  greater  maturity  and  in  April, 
1919,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Verdi  Club, 
he  conducted  "II  Trovatore"  in  the  Grand 
Ballroom  of  the  Waldorf-Astoria.  Maud 


152      The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Cuney  Hare  has  helped  to  popularize  Negro 
music  by  lecture-recitals  and  several  articles 
in  musical  journals,  the  latter  being  repre- 
sented by  such  titles  as  "The  Drum  in 
Africa,"  "The  Sailor  and  his  Songs, "  and 
"Afro- American  Folk-Song  Contribution " 
in  the  Musical  Observer.  In  January,  1919, 
with  the  assistance  of  William  B.  Rich- 
ardson, baritone,  Mrs.  Hare  gave  a  lecture- 
recital  on  "  Afro-  American  and  Creole 
Music "  in  the  lecture  hall  of  the  Bos- 
ton Public  Library,  this  being  one  of 
four  such  lectures  arranged  for  the  winter 
by  the  library  trustees  and  marking  the 
first  time  such  recognition  was  accorded 
members  of  the  race.  The  violinist,  Clar- 
ence Cameron  White,  has  also  entered  the 
ranks  of  the  composers  with  his  "Ban- 
danna Sketches "  and  other  productions, 
and  to  the  Musical  Observer  (beginning  in 
February,  1917)  he  also  contributed  a  for- 
mal consideration  of  "Negro  Music." 
Meanwhile  J.  Rosamond  Johnson,  Carl  Di- 
ton,  and  other  musicians  have  pressed  for- 
ward; and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  before  very 
long  the  ambitious  and  frequently  powerful 


General  Progress  153 

work   of  H.   Laurence   Freeman  will  also 
win  the  recognition  it  deserves. 

In  the  department  of  singing,  in  which 
the  race  has  already  done  so  much  laudable 
work,  we  are  evidently  on  the  threshold  of 
greater  achievement  than  ever  before.  Sev- 
eral young  men  and  women  are  just  now 
appearing  above  the  horizon,  and  only  a 
few  years  are  needed  to  see  who  will  be 
able  to  contribute  most;  and  what  applies 
to  the  singers  holds  also  in  the  case  of  the 
young  violinists,  pianists,  and  composers. 
Of  those  who  have  appeared  within  the  pe- 
riod, Antoinette  Smythe  Games,  who  was 
graduated  from  the  Chicago  Musical  College 
in  1919  with  a  diamond  medal  for  efficiency, 
has  been  prominent  among  those  who  have 
awakened  the  highest  expectation;  and  Ma- 
rian Anderson,  a  remarkable  contralto,  and 
Cleota  J.  Collins,  a  soprano,  have  fre- 
quently appeared  with  distinct  success. 
Meanwhile  Roland  W.  Hayes,  the  tenor,  has 
been  winning  further  triumphs  by  his  con- 
certs in  London;  and  generally  prominent 
before  the  public  in  the  period  now  under 
review  has  been  Mme.  Florence  Cole  Tal- 


154       The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

bert,  also  the  winner  of  a  diamond  medal 
at  Chicago  in  1916.  Mme.  Talbert  has  been 
a  conscientious  worker;  her  art  has  now 
ripened;  and  she  has  justified  her  high  po- 
sition by  the  simplicity  and  ease  with  which 
she  has  appeared  on  numerous  occasions, 
one  of  the  most  noteworthy  of  her  concerts 
being  that  at  the  University  of  California 
in  1920. 


A  list  if  books  bearing  on  the  artistic  life  of 
the  Negro,  whether  or  not  by  members  of  the 
race,  would  include  those  below;.  It  may  be  re- 
marked that  these  are  only  some  if  the  more  rep- 
resentative of  the  productions  within  the  last 
three  years,  and  attention  might  also  be  called 
to  the  pictures  of  the  Van  Hove  Statues  in  the 
Congo  Museum  at  Brussels  in  the  Crisis,  Sep- 
tember, 1920. 

A  Social  History  of  the  American  Negro,  by  Ben- 
jamin Brawley.  The  Macmillan  Company,  New 
York,  1921. 

Songs  and  Tales  from  the  Dark  Continent,  re- 
corded from  the  singing  and  the  sayings  of  C. 
Kamba  Simango,  Ndau  Tribe,  Portuguese  East 
Africa,  and  Madikane  Cele,  Zulu  Tribe,  Natal, 
Zululand,  South  Africa,  by  Natalie  Curtis  Bur- 
lin.  Q.  Schirmer,  New  York  and  Boston,  1920. 

Negro  Folk-Songs :  Hampton  Series,  recorded  by 
Natalie  Curtis  Burlin,  in  four  books.  G.  Schir- 
mer, New  York  and  Boston,  1918. 


General  Progress  155 

The  Upw&rd  Path :  A  reader  for  colored  children, 
compiled  by  Myron  T.  Prichard  and  Mary 
White  Ovington,  with  an  introduction  by  Rob- 
ert R.  Moton.  Harcourt,  Brace  &  Co.,  New 
York,  1920. 

J.   A.    Lomax:     Self-Pity   in   Negro   Folk-Songs. 

Nation,  August  9,  1917. 
Louise  Pound:     Ancestry  of  a  "Negro  Spiritual." 

Modern  Language  Notes,  November,  1918. 
Natalie   Curtis   Burlin:    Negro   Music   at   Birth. 

Music  Quarterly,  January,  1919,  and  Current 

Opinion,  March,  1919. 

William  Stanley  Braithwaite:  Some  Contempor- 
ary Poets  of  the  Negro  Race.  Crisis,  April, 

1919. 
Elsie  Clews  Parsons:  Joel  Chandler  Harris  and 

Negro  Folklore.    Dial,  May  17,  1919. 
Willis  Richardson :     The  Hope  of  a  Negro  Drama. 

Crisis,  November,  1919. 

N.  I.  White:  Racial  Traits  in  the  Negro  Song. 
Sewanee  Review,  July,  1920. 

Our  Debt  to  Negro  Sculpture.  Literary  Digest, 
July  17,  1920. 

C.  Bell:  Negro  Sculpture.  Living  Age,  Septem- 
ber 25,  1920. 

Robert  T.  Kerlin:  Present-Day  Negro  Poets. 
Southern  Workman,  December,  1920. 

Robert  T.  Kerlin :  "Canticles  of  Love  and  Woe." 
Southern  Workman,  February,  1921. 


XIV 

CHARLES   S.    OILPIN 

AS  an  illustration  of  the  highly  romantic 
temperament  that  characterizes  the 
Negro  race,  and  also  as  an  instance  of  an 
artist  who  has  worked  for  years  to  realize 
his  possibilities,  we  might  cite  such  a  shin- 
ing example  as  Charles  S.  Gilpin,  the  star 
of  "The  Emperor  Jones "  in  the  New  York 
theatrical  season  of  1920-21.  Here  is  a  man 
who  for  years  dreamed  of  attainment  in  the 
field  of  the  legitimate  drama,  but  who  found 
no  opening;  but  who  with  it  all  did  not 
despair,  and  now,  after  years  of  striving 
and  waiting,  stands  with  his  rounded  ex- 
perience and  poise  as  an  honor  and  genuine 
contributor  to  the  American  stage. 

Charles  S.  Gilpin  was  born  in  Richmond, 
Va.,  the  youngest  child  in  a  large  family. 
His  mother  was  a  nurse  in  the  city  hospital ; 

156 


Charles  S.  Gilpin  157 

his  father  a  hard-working  man  in  a  steel 
plant.  He  was  educated  at  St.  Frances' 
Convent,  where  he  sang  well  and  took  some 
part  in  amateur  theatricals;  but  he  was  to 
work  a  long  while  yet  before  he  found  a 
chance  to  do  the  kind  of  work  that  he 
wanted  to  do,  and  meanwhile  he  was  to 
earn  his  living  as  printer  or  barber  or 
otherwise,  just  as  occasion  served.  He 
himself  has  recently  said,  "I've  been  in 
stock  companies,  vaudeville,  minstrel  shows, 
and  carnivals;  but  not  until  1907  did  I 
have  an  opportunity  to  show  an  audience 
that  the  Negro  has  dramatic  talent  and  likes 
to  play  parts  other  than  comedy  ones." 

It  was  in  the  90 's  that  Mr.  Gilpin  began 
his  professional  work  as  a  variety  per- 
former in  Richmond,  and  he  soon  joined  a 
traveling  organization.  In  1903  he  was  one 
of  the  Gilmore  Canadian  Jubilee  Singers; 
in  1905  he  was  with  Williams  and  Walker; 
the  next  season  with  Gus  Hill's  "Smart 
Set";  and  then  from  1907  to  1909  with  the 
Pekin  Stock  Company  of  Chicago.  This 
last  company  consisted  of  about  forty  mem- 
bers, of  whom  eleven  were  finally  selected 


158      The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

for  serious  drama.  Mr.  Gilpiu  was  one  of 
these ;  but  the  manager  died,  and  once  more 
the  aspiring  actor  was  forced  back  to  vaude- 
ville. 

Now  followed  ten  long  years — ten  years 
of  the  kind  that  blast  and  kill,  and  with 
which  even  the  strongest  man  sometimes 
goes  under.  With  the  New  York  managers 
there  was  no  opening.  And  yet  sometimes 
there  was  hope — not  only  hope,  but  leader- 
ship and  effort  for  others,  as  when  Mr. 
Gilpin  carried  a  company  of  his  own  to  the 
Lafayette  Theatre  and  helped  to  begin  the 
production  of  Broadway  shows.  Life  was 
leading — somewhere ;  but  meanwhile  one  had 
to  live,  and  the  way  was  as  yet  uncertain. 
At  last,  in  1919,  came  a  chance  to  play  Wil- 
liam Custis,  the  old*  Negro  in  Drinkwater's 
"Abraham  Lincoln." 

The  part  was  not  a  great. one.  It  was 
still  bound  by  racial  limitations  and  Custis 
appeared  in  only  one  scene.  Nevertheless 
the  work  was  serious;  here  at  least  was 
opportunity. 

In  the  early  fall  of  1920  Mr.  Gilpin  was 
still  playing  Custis  and  helping  to  make 


Charles  S.  Gilpm  159 

th0  play  a  success.  Meanwhile,  however, 
Eugene  O'Neill,  one  of  the  most  original 
playwrights  in  the  country,  had  written 
"The  Emperor  Jones ";  and  Charles  S.  Gil- 
pin  was  summoned  to  the  part  of  the  star. 

There  were  many  who  regretted  to  see 
him  leave  "Abraham  Lincoln,"  and  some  in- 
deed who  wondered  if  he  did  the  wise  thing. 
To  Charles  Gilpin,  however,  came  the  de- 
cision that  sooner  or  later  must  be  faced 
by  every  artist,  and  indeed  by  every  man 
in  any  field  of  endeavor — either  to  rest  on 
safe  and  assumed  achievement,  or  to  be- 
lieve in  one's  own  self,  take  the  great  risk, 
and  launch  out  into  the  unknown.  He  choose 
to  believe  in  himself.  His  work  was  one  of 
the  features  of  the  New  York  theatrical 
season  of  1920-21,  and  at  the  annual  dinner 
of  the  Drama  League  in  1921  he  was  one 
of  the  ten  guests  who  were  honored  as  hav- 
ing contributed  most  to  the  American  thea- 
tre within  the  year. 

The  play  on  which  this  success  has  been 
based  is  a  highly  original  and  dramatic 
study  of  panic  and  fear.  The  Emperor 
Jones  is  a  Negro  who  has  broken  out  of 


160      The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

jail  in  the  United  States  and  escaped  to 
what  is  termed  a  "West  Indian  Island  not 
yet  self-determined  by  white  marines." 
Here  he  is  sufficiently  bold  and  ingenious  to 
make  himself  ruler  within  two  years.  He 
moves  unharmed  among  his  sullen  subjects 
by  virtue  of  a  legend  of  his  invention  that 
only  a  silver  bullet  can  harm  him,  but  at 
length  when  he  has  reaped  all  the  riches 
in  sight,  he  deems  it  advisable  to  flee.  As 
the  play  begins,  the  measured  sound  of  a 
beating  tom-tom  in  the  hills  gives  warning 
that  the  natives  are  in  conclave,  using  all 
kinds  of  incantations  to  work  themselves 
up  to  the  point  of  rebellion.  Nightfall  finds 
the  Emperor  at  the  edge  of  a  forest  where 
he  has  food  hidden  and  through  whose 
trackless  waste  he  knows  a  way  to  safety 
and  freedom.  His  revolver  carries  five  bul- 
lets for  his  pursuers  and  a  silver  one  for 
himself  in  case  of  need.  Bold  and  adven- 
turous, he  plunges  into  the  jungle  at  sun- 
set; but  at  dawn,  half-crazed,  naked,  and 
broken,  he  stumbles  back  to  the  starting- 
place  only  to  find  the  natives  quietly  wait- 
ing for  him  there.  Now  follows  a  vivid  por- 


Charles  S.  Gilpm 

trayal  of  strange  sounds  and  shadows,  with 
terrible  visions  from  the  past.  As  the  Em- 
peror's fear  quickens,  the  forest  seems 
filled  with  threatening  people  who  stare  at 
and  bid  for  him.  Finally,  shrieking  at  the 
worst  vision  of  all,  he  is  driven  back  to  the 
clearing  and  to  his  death,  the  tom-tom  beat- 
ing ever  nearer  and  faster  according  as  his 
panic  grows. 

To  the  work  of  this  remarkable  part — 
which  is  so  dominating  in  the  play  that  it 
has  been  called  a  dramatic  monologue — 
Mr.  Gilpin  brings  the  resources  of  a  ma- 
tured and  thoroughly  competent  actor.  His 
performance  is  powerful  and-  richly  imagi- 
native, and  only  other  similarly  strong  plays 
are  now  needed  for  the  further  enlargement 
of  the  art  of  an  actor  who  has  already 
shown  -himself  capable  of  the  hardest  work 
and  the  highest  things. 

For  once  the  critics  were  agreed.  Said 
Alexander  Woolcott  in  the  New  York  Times 
with  reference  to  those  who  produced  the 
play:  "They  have  acquired  an  actor,  one 
who  has  it  in  him  to  invoke  the  pity  and  the 
terror  and  the  indescribable  foreboding 


162       The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

which  are  part  of  the  secret  of  'The  Em- 
peror Jones.'  "  Kenneth  MacGowan  wrote 
in  the  Globe;  "Gilpin's  is  a  sustained  and 
splendid  piece  of  acting.  The  moment  when 
he  raises  his  naked  body  against  the  moon- 
lit sky,  beyond  the  edge  of  the  jungle,  and 
prays,  is  such  a  dark  lyric  of  the  flesh, 
such  a  cry  of  the  primitive  being,  as  I  have 
never  seen  in  the  theatre";  and  in  the 
Tribune  Heywood  Broun  said  of  the  ac- 
tor: "He  sustains  the  succession  of  scenes 
in  monologue  not  only  because  his  voice  is 
one  of  a  gorgeous  natural  quality,  but  be- 
cause he  knows  just  what  to  do  with  it. 
All  the  notes  are  there  and  he  has  also  an 
extraordinary  facility  for  being  in  the  right 
place  at  the  right  time."  Such  comments 
have  been  re-echoed  by  the  thousands  who 
have  witnessed  Mr.  Gilpin's  thrilling  work, 
and  in  such  a  record  as  this  he  deserves 
further  credit  as  one  who  has  finally  bridged 
the  chasm  between  popular  comedy  and  the 
legitimate  drama,  and  who  thus  by  sheer 
right  of  merit  steps  into  his  own  as  the 
foremost  actor  that  the  Negro  race  has 
produced  within  recent  years.  Jl 


APPENDIX 


1.  THE   NEGRO   IN   AMERICAN   FICTION 

EVER  since  Sydney  Smith  sneered  at  American 
books  a  hundred  years  ago,  honest  critics  have 
asked  themselves  if  the  literature  of  the  United  States 
was  not  really  open  to  the  charge  of  provincialism. 
Within  the  last  year  or  two  the  argument  has  been 
very  much  revived;  and  an  English  critic,  Mr. 
Edward  Garnett,  writing  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly, 
has  pointed  out  that  with  our  predigested  ideas 
and  made-to-order  fiction  we  not  only  discourage 
individual  genius,  but  make  it  possible  for  the  mul- 
titude to  think  only  such  thoughts  as  have  passed 
through  a  sieve.  Our  most  popular  novelists,  and 
sometimes  our  most  respectable  writers,  see  only 
the  sensation  that  is  uppermost  for  the  moment  in 
the  mind  of  the  crowd — divorce,  graft,  tainted 
meat  or  money — and  they  proceed  to  cut  the  cloth 
of  their  fiction  accordingly.  Mr.  Owen  Wister,  a 
"regular  practitioner"  of  the  novelist's  art,  in  sub- 
stance admitting  the  weight  of  these  charges,  lays 
the  blame  on  our  crass  democracy  which  utterly 
refuses  to  do  its  own  thinking  and  which  is  satisfied 
only  with  the  tinsel  and  gewgaws  and  hobbyhorses 
of  literature.  And  no  theme  has  suffered  so  much 
from  the  coarseness  of  the  mob-spirit  in  literature 
as  that  of  the  Negro. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Negro  in  his  problems 

165 


166  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

and  strivings  offers  to  American  writers  the  greatest 
opportunity  that  could  possibly  be  given  to  them 
to-day.  It  is  commonly  agreed  that  only  one  other 
large  question,  that  of  the  relations  of  capital  and 
labor,  is  of  as  much  interest  to  the  American  pub- 
lic; and  even  this  great  issue  fails  to  possess  quite 
the  appeal  offered  by  the  Negro  from  the  social 
standpoint.  One  can  only  imagine  what  a  Victor 
Hugo,  detached  and  philosophical,  would  have 
done  with  such  a  theme  in  a  novel.  When  we  see 
what  actually  has  been  done — how  often  in  the 
guise  of  fiction  a  writer  has  preached  a  sermon  or 
shouted  a  political  creed,  or  vented  his  spleen — 
we  are  not  exactly  proud  of  the  art  of  novel-writing 
as  it  has  been  developed  in  the  United  States  of 
America.  Here  was  opportunity  for  tragedy,  for 
comedy,  for  the  subtle  portrayal  of  all  the  relations 
of  man  with  his  fellow  man,  for  faith  and  hope 
and  love  and  sorrow.  And  yet,  with  the  Civil  War 
fifty  years  in  the  distance,  not  one  novel  or  one 
short  story  of  the  first  rank  has  found  its  inspiration 
in  this  great  theme.  Instead  of  such  work  we  have 
consistently  had  traditional  tales,  political  tracts, 
and  lurid  melodramas. 

Let  us  see  who  have  approached  the  theme,  and 
just  what  they  have  done  with  it,  for  the  present 
leaving  out  of  account  all  efforts  put  forth  by  Negro 
writers  themselves. 

The  names  of  four  exponents  of  Southern  life 
come  at  once  to  mind— George  W.  Cable,  Joel 
Chandler  Harris,  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  and  Thomas 
Dixon;  and  at  once,  in  their  outlook  and  method 
of  work,  the  first  two  become  separate  from  the 


Appendix  167 

last  two.  Cable  and  Harris  have  looked  toward  the 
past,  and  have  embalmed  vanished  or  vanishing 
types.  Mr.  Page  and  Mr.  Dixon,  with  their  thought 
on  the  present  (though  for  the  most  part  they 
portray  the  recent  past),  have  used  the  novel  as  a 
vehicle  for  political  propaganda. 

It  was  in  1879  that  "Old  Creole  Days"  evidenced 
the  advent  of  a  new  force  in  American  literature; 
and  on  the  basis  of  this  work,  and  of  "The  Grandis- 
simes"  which  followed,  Mr.  Cable  at  once  took  his 
place  as  the  foremost  portrayer  of  life  in  old  New 
Orleans.  By  birth,  by  temperament,  and  by  train- 
ing he  was  thoroughly  fitted  for  the  task  to  which 
he  set  himself.  His  mother  was  from  New  England, 
his  father  of  the  stock  of  colonial  Virginia;  and 
the  stern  Puritanism  of  the  North  was  mellowed 
by  the  gentler  influences  of  the  South.  Moreover, 
from  his  long  apprenticeship  in  newspaper  work 
in  New  Orleans  he  had  received  abundantly  the 
knowledge  and  training  necessary  for  his  work. 
Setting  himself  to  a  study  of  the  Negro  of  the  old 
regime,  he  made  a  specialty  of  the  famous — and 
infamous — quadroon  society  of  Louisiana  of  the 
third  and  fourth  decades  of  the  last  century.  And 
excellent  as  was  his  work,  turning  his  face  to  the 
past  in  manner  as  well  as  in  matter,  from  the  very 
first  he  raised  the  question  propounded  by  this 
paper.  In  his  earliest  volume  there  was  a  story 
entitled  "  'Tite  Poulette,"  the  heroine  of  which  was 
a  girl  amazingly  fair,  the  supposed  daughter  of 
one  Madame  John.  A  young  Dutchman  fell  in 
love  with  'Tite  Poulette,  championed  her  cause  at 
all  times,  suffered  a  beating  and  stabbing  for  her, 


168   The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

and  was  by  her  nursed  back  to  life  and  love.  In 
the  midst  of  his  perplexity  about  joining  himself 
to  a  member  of  another  race,  came  the  word  from 
Madame  John  that  the  girl  was  not  her  daughter, 
but  the  child  of  yellow  fever  patients  whom  she 
had  nursed  until  they  died,  leaving  their  infant  in 
her  care.  Immediately  upon  the  publication  of 
this  story,  the  author  received  a  letter  from  a  young 
woman  who  had  actually  lived  in  very  much  the 
same  situation  as  that  portrayed  in  "Tite  Pou- 
lette,"  telling  him  that  his  story  was  not  true  to 
life  and  that  he  knew  it  was  not,  for  Madame 
John  really  was  the  mother  of  the  heroine.  Accept- 
ing the  criticism,  Mr.  Cable  set  about  the  composi- 
tion of  "Madame  Delphine,"  in  which  the  situation 
is  somewhat  similar,  but  in  which  at  the  end  the 
mother  tamely  makes  a  confession  to  a  priest. 
What  is  the  trouble?  The  artist  is  so  bound  by 
circumstances  and  hemmed  in  by  tradition  that  he 
simply  has  not  the  courage  to  launch  out  into  the 
deep  and  work  out  his  human  problems  for  himself. 
Take  a  representative  portrait  from  "The  Grandis- 
simes": 

Clemence  had  come  through  ages  of  African  savagery, 
through  fires  that  do  not  refine,  but  that  blunt  and  blast 
and  blacken  and  char;  starvation,  gluttony,  drunken- 
ness, thirst,  drowning,  nakedness,  dirt,  fetichism,  de- 
bauchery, slaughter,  pestilence,  and  the  rest — she  was 
their  heiress;  they  left  her  the  cinders  of  human  feelings. 
. . .  She  had  had  children  of  assorted  colors — had  one  with 
her  now,  the  black  boy  that  brought  the  basil  to  Joseph; 
the  others  were  here  and  there,  some  in  the  Grandissime 
households  or  field-gangs,  some  elsewhere  within  occasional 


Appendix  169 

sight,  some  dead,  some  not  accounted  for.  Husbands- 
like  the  Samaritan  woman's.  We  know  she  was  a  con- 
stant singer  and  laugher. 

Very  brilliant  of  course;  and  yet  Clemence  is  a 
relic,  not  a  prophecy. 

Still  more  of  a  relic  is  Uncle  Remus.  For  decades 
now,  this  charming  old  Negro  has  been  held  up 
to  the  children  of  the  South  as  the  perfect  expression 
of  the  beauty  of  life  in  the  glorious  times  "befo' 
de  wah,"  when  every  Southern  gentleman  was 
suckled  at  the  bosom  of  a  "black  mammy."  Why 
should  we  not  occasionally  attempt  to  paint  the 
Negro  of  the  new  day — intelligent,  ambitious, 
thrifty,  manly?  Perhaps  he  is  not  so  poetic;  but 
certainly  the  human  element  is  greater. 

To  the  school  of  Cable  and  Harris  belong  also 
of  course  Miss  Grace  King  and  Mrs.  Ruth  McEnery 
Stuart,  a  thoroughly  representative  piece  of  work 
being  Mrs.  Stuart's  "Uncle  'Riah's  Christmas  Eve." 
Other  more  popular  writers  of  the  day,  Miss  Mary 
Johnston  and  Miss  Ellen  Glasgow  for  instance, 
attempt  no  special  analysis  of  the  Negro.  They 
simply  take  him  for  granted  as  an  institution  that 
always  has  existed  and  always  will  exist,  as  a  hewer 
of  wood  and  drawer  of  water,  from  the  first  flush 
of  creation  to  the  sounding  of  the  trump  of  doom. 

But  more  serious  is  the  tone  when  we  come  to 
Thomas  Nelson  Page  and  Thomas  Dixon.  We 
might  tarry  for  a  few  minutes  with  Mr.  Page  to 
listen  to  more  such  tales  as  those  of  Uncle  Remus; 
but  we  must  turn  to  living  issues.  Times  have 
changed.  The  grandson  of  Uncle  Remus  does  not 


170  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

feel  that  he  must  stand  with  his  hat  in  his  hand 
when  he  is  in  our  presence,  and  he  even  presume* 
to  help  us  in  the  running  of  our  government.  This 
will  never  do;  so  in  "Red  Rock"  and  "The  Leop- 
ard's Spots"  it  must  be  shown  that  he  should 
never  have  been  allowed  to  vote  anyway,  and  those 
honorable  gentlemen  in  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  in  the  year  1865  did  not  know  at  all  what 
they  were  about.  Though  we  are  given  the  char- 
acters and  setting  of  a  novel,  the  real  business  is  to 
show  that  the  Negro  has  been  the  "sentimental 
pet"  of  the  nation  all  too  long.  By  all  means  let 
us  have  an  innocent  white  girl,  a  burly  Negro,  and 
a  burning  at  the  stake,  or  the  story  would  be  in- 
complete. 

We  have  the  same  thing  in  "The  Clansman," 
a  "drama  of  fierce  revenge."  But  here  we  are  con- 
cerned very  largely  with  the  blackening  of  a  man's 
character.  Stoneman  (Thaddeus  Stevens  very  thin- 
ly disguised)  is  himself  the  whole  Congress  of  the 
United  States.  He  is  a  gambler,  and  "spends  a 
part  of  almost  every  night  at  Hall  &  Pemberton's 
Faro  Place  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue."  He  is  hys- 
terical, "drunk  with  the  joy  of  a  triumphant 
vengeance."  "The  South  is  conquered  soil,"  he 
says  to  the  President  (a  mere  figure-head,  by  the 
way),  "I  mean  to  blot  it  from  the  map."  Further: 
"It  is  but  the  justice  and  wisdom  of  heaven  that 
the  Negro  shall  rule  the  land  of  his  bondage.  It 
is  the  only  solution  of  the  race  problem.  Wait 
until  I  put  a  ballot  in  the  hand  of  every  Negro,  and 
a  bayonet  at  the  breast  of  every  white  man  from 
the  James  to  the  Rio  Grande."  Stoneman,  moreover, 


Appendix  171 

has  a  mistress,  a  mulatto  woman,  a  "yellow  vam- 
pire" who  dominates  him  completely.  "Senators, 
representatives,  politicians  of  low  and  high  degree, 
artists,  correspondents,  foreign  ministers,  and  cabi- 
net officers  hurried  to  acknowledge  their  fealty  to 
the  uncrowned  king,  and  hail  the  strange  brown 
woman  who  held  the  keys  of  his  house  as  the  first 
lady  of  the  land."  This,  let  us  remember,  was  for 
some  months  the  best-selling  book  in  the  United 
States.  A  slightly  altered  version  of  it  has  very 
recently  commanded  such  prices  as  were  never  be- 
fore paid  for  seats  at  a  moving-picture  entertain- 
ment; and  with  "The  Traitor"  and  "The  South- 
erner" it  represents  our  most  popular  treatment  of 
the  gravest  social  question  in  American  life!  "The 
Clansman"  is  to  American  literature  exactly  what 
a  Louisiana  mob  is  to  American  democracy.  Only 
too  frequently,  of  course,  the  mob  represents  us 
all  too  well. 

Turning  from  the  longer  works  of  fiction  to  the 
short  story,  I  have  been  interested  to  see  how  the 
matter  has  been  dealt  with  here.  For  purposes  of 
comparison  I  have  selected  from  ten  representative 
periodicals  as  many  distinct  stories,  no  one  of  which 
was  published  more  than  ten  years  ago;  and  as 
these  are  in  almost  every  case  those  stories  that  first 
strike  the  eye  in  a  periodical  index,  we  may  assume 
that  they  are  thoroughly  typical.  The  ten  are: 
"Shadow,"  by  Harry  Stillwell  Edwards,  in  the 
Century  (December,  1906);  "Callum's  Co'tin':  A 
Plantation  Idyl,"  by  Frank  H.  Sweet,  in  the 
Craftsman  (March,  1907);  "His  Excellency  the 
Governor,"  by  L.  M.  Cooke,  in  Putnam's  (Febru- 


172  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

ary,  1908);  "The  Black  Drop,"  by  Margaret  De- 
land  in  Collier's  Weekly  (May  2  and  9,  1908); 
"Jungle  Blood,"  by  Elmore  Elliott  Peake,  in  Me- 
Clure'a  (September,  1908);  "The  Race-Rioter,"  by 
Harris  Merton  Lyon,  in  the  American  (February, 
1910);  "Shadow,"  by  Grace  MacGowan  Cooke 
and  Alice  MacGowan,  in  Everybody's  (March, 
1910);  "Abram's  Freedom,"  by  Edna  Turpin,  in 
the  Atlantic  (September,  1912);  "A  Hypothetical 
Case,"  by  Norman  Duncan,  in  Harper's  (June, 
1915);  and  "The  Chalk  Game,"  by  L.  B.  Yates,  in 
the  Saturday  Evening  Post  (June  5,  1915).  For 
high  standards  of  fiction  I  think  we  may  safely 
say  that,  all  in  all,  the  periodicals  here  mentioned 
are  representative  of  the  best  that  America  has  to 
offer.  In  some  cases  the  story  cited  is  the  only  one 
on  the  Negro  question  that  a  magazine  has  pub- 
lished within  the  decade. 

"Shadow"  (in  the  Century)  is  the  story  of  a  Negro 
convict  who  for  a  robbery  committed  at  the  age 
of  fourteen  was  sentenced  to  twenty  years  of  hard 
labor  in  the  mines  of  Alabama.  An  accident  dis- 
abled him,  however,  and  prevented  his  doing  the 
regular  work  for  the  full  period  of  his  imprisonment. 
At  twenty  he  was  a  hostler,  looking  forward  in 
despair  to  the  fourteen  years  of  confinement  still 
waiting  for  him.  But  the  three  little  girls  of  the 
prison  commissioner  visit  the  prison.  Shadow  per- 
forms many  little  acts  of  kindness  for  them,  and 
their  hearts  go  out  to  him.  They  storm  the  governor 
and  the  judge  for  his  pardon,  and  present  the  Negro 
with  his  freedom  as  a  Christmas  gift.  The  story  is 
not  long,  but  it  strikes  a  note  of  genuine  pathos. 


Appendix  173 

"Callum's  Co'tin"'  is  concerned  with  a  hard- 
working Negro,  a  blacksmith,  nearly  forty,  who 
goes  courting  the  girl  who  called  at  his  shop  to  get 
a  trinket  mended  for  her  mistress.  At  first  he  makes 
himself  ridiculous  by  his  finery;  later  he  makes  the 
mistake  of  coming  to  a  crowd  of  merrymakers  in 
his  working  clothes.  More  and  more,  however, 
he  storms  the  heart  of  the  girl,  who  eventually 
capitulates.  From  the  standpoint  simply  of  crafts- 
manship, the  story  is  an  excellent  piece  of  work. 

"His  Excellency  the  Governor"  deals  with  the 
custom  on  Southern  plantations  of  having,  in  imi- 
tation of  the  white  people,  a  Negro  "governor" 
whose  duty  it  was  to  settle  minor  disputes.  At  the 
death  of  old  Uncle  Caleb,  who  for  years  had  held 
this  position  of  responsibility,  his  son  Jubal  should 
have  been  the  next  in  order.  He  was  likely  to  be 
superseded,  however,  by  loud-mouthed  Sambo, 
though  urged  to  assert  himself  by  Maria,  his  wife, 
an  old  house-servant  who  had  no  desire  whatever 
to  be  defeated  for  the  place  of  honor  among  the 
women  by  Sue,  a  former  field-hand.  At  the  meeting 
where  all  was  to  be  decided,  however,  Jubal  with 
the  aid  of  his  fiddle  completely  confounded  his 
rival  and  won.  There  are  some  excellent  touches 
in  the  story;  but,  on  the  whole,  the  composition 
is  hardly  more  than  fair  in  literary  quality. 

"The  Black  Drop,"  throughout  which  we  see 
the  hand  of  an  experienced  writer,  analyzes  the 
heart  of  a  white  boy  who  is  in  love  with  a  girl  who 
is  almost  white,  and  who  when  the  test  confronts 
him  suffers  the  tradition  that  binds  him  to  get  the 
better  of  his  heart.  "But  you  will  still  believe  that 


174  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

I  love  you?"  he  asks,  ill  at  ease  as  they  separate. 
"No,  of  course  I  can  not  believe  that,"  replies  the 
girl. 

"Jungle  Blood"  is  the  story  of  a  simple-minded, 
simple-hearted  Negro  of  gigantic  size  who  in  a 
moment  of  fury  kills  his  pretty  wife  and  the  white 
man  who  has  seduced  her.  The  tone  of  the  whole 
may  be  gleaned  from  the  description  of  Moss 
Harper's  father:  "An  old  darky  sat  drowsing  on 
the  stoop.  There  was  something  ape-like  about 
his  long  arms,  his  flat,  wide-nostriled  nose,  and  the 
mat  of  gray  wool  which  crept  down  his  forehead  to 
within  two  inches  of  his  eyebrows." 

"The  Race-Rioter"  sets  forth  the  stand  of  a 
brave  young  sheriff  to  protect  his  prisoner,  a  Negro 
boy,  accused  of  the  assault  and  murder  of  a  little 
white  girl.  Hank  Egge  tries  by  every  possible 
subterfuge  to  defeat  the  plans  of  a  lynching  party, 
and  finally  dies  riddled  with  bullets  as  he  is  defend- 
ing his  prisoner.  The  story  is  especially  remarkable 
for  the  strong  and  sympathetic  characterization 
of  such  contrasting  figures  as  young  Egge  and  old 
Dikeson,  the  father  of  the  dead  girl. 

"Shadow"  (in  Everybody's)  is  a  story  that  de- 
pends for  its  force  very  largely  upon  incident. 
It  studies  the  friendship  of  a  white  boy,  Ranny, 
and  a  black  boy,  Shadow,  a  relationship  that  is 
opposed  by  both  the  Northern  white  mother  and 
the  ambitious  and  independent  Negro  mother. 
In  a  fight,  Shad  breaks  a  collar-bone  for  Ranny; 
later  he  saves  him  from  drowning.  In  the  face  of 
Ranny's  white  friends,  all  the  harsher  side  of  the 
problem  is  seen;  and  yet  the  human  element  is 


Appendix  175 

strong  beneath  it  all.  The  story,  not  without 
considerable  merit  as  it  is,  would  have  been  infinitely 
stronger  if  the  friendship  of  the  two  boys  had  been 
pitched  on  a  higher  plane.  As  it  is,  Shad  is  very 
much  like  a  dog  following  his  master. 

"Abram's  Freedom"  is  at  the  same  time  one  of 
the  most  clever  and  one  of  the  most  provoking 
stories  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  It  is  a  perfect 
example  of  how  one  may  walk  directly  up  to  the 
light  and  then  deliberately  turn  his  back  upon  it. 
The  story  is  set  just  before  the  Civil  War.  It  deals 
with  the  love  of  the  slave  Abram  for  a  free  young 
woman,  Emmeline.  "All  his  life  he  had  heard  and 
used  the  phrase  'free  nigger*  as  a  term  of  contempt. 
What,  then,  was  this  vague  feeling,  not  definite 
enough  yet  to  be  a  wish  or  even  a  longing?"  So 
far,  so  good.  Emmeline  inspires  within  her  lover 
the  highest  ideals  of  manhood,  and  he  becomes 
a  hostler  in-  a  livery-stable,  paying  to  his  master 
so  much  a  year  for  his  freedom.  Then  comes  the 
astounding  and  forced  conclusion.  At  the  very 
moment  when,  after  years  of  effort,  Emmeline  has 
helped  her  husband  to  gain  his  freedom  (and  when 
all  the  slaves  are  free  as  a  matter  of  fact  by  virtue 
of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation),  Emmeline, 
whose  husband  has  special  reason  to  be  grateful 
to  his  former  master,  says  to  the  lady  of  the  house: 
"Me  an'  Abram  ain't  got  nothin*  to  do  in  dis  worl* 
but  to  wait  on  you  an*  master." 

In  "A  Hypothetical  Case"  we  again  see  the 
hand  of  a  master-craftsman.  Is  a  white  boy  jus- 
tified in  shooting  a  Negro  who  has  offended  him? 
The  white  father  is  not  quite  at  ease,  quibbles  a 


176  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

good  deal,  but  finally  eays  Yes.  The  story,  how- 
ever, makes  it  clear  that  the  Negro  did  not  strike 
the  boy.  He  was  a  hermit  living  on  the  Florida 
coast  and  perfectly  abased  when  he  met  Mercer 
and  his  two  companions.  When  the  three  boys 
pursued  him  and  finally  overtook  him,  the  Negro 
simply  held  the  hands  of  Mercer  until  the  boy  had 
recovered  his  temper.  Mercer  in  his  rage  really 
struck  himself. 

"The  Chalk  Game"  is  the  story  of  a  little  Negro 
jockey  who  wins  a  race  in  Louisville  only  to  be 
drugged  and  robbed  by  some  "flashlight"  Negroes 
who  send  him  to  Chicago.  There  he  recovers  his 
fortunes  by  giving  to  a  group  of  gamblers  the  cor- 
rect "tip"  on  another  race,  and  he  makes  his  way 
back  to  Louisville  much  richer  by  his  visit.  Through- 
out the  story  emphasis  is  placed  upon  the  super- 
stitious element  in  the  Negro  race,  an  element 
readily  considered  by  men  who  believe  in  luck. 

Of  these  ten  stories,  only  five  strike  out  with 
even  the  slightest  degree  of  independence.  "  Shadow  " 
(in  the  Century)  is  not  a  powerful  piece  of  work, 
but  it  is  written  in  tender  and  beautiful  spirit. 
"The  Black  Drop"  is  a  bold  handling  of  a  strong 
situation.  "The  Race-Rioter"  also  rings  true,  and 
in  spite  of  the  tragedy  there  is  optimism  in  this 
story  of  a  man  who  is  not  afraid  to  do  his 
duty.  "Shadow"  (in  Everybody's)  awakens  all 
sorts  of  discussion,  but  at  least  attempts  to  deal 
honestly  with  a  situation  that  might  arise  in  any 
neighborhood  at  any  time.  "A  Hypothetical  Case" 
is  the  most  tense  and  independent  story  in  the  list. 

On   the   other   hand,    "Callum's   Co'tin'"   and 


Appendix  177 

"His  Excellency  the  Governor,"  bright  comedy 
though  they  are,  belong,  after  all,  to  the  school  of 
Uncle  Remus.  "Jungle  Blood"  and  "The  Chalk 
Game"  belong  to  the  class  that  always  regards  the 
Negro  as  an  animal,  a  minor,  a  plaything — but 
never  as  a  man.  "Abram's  Freedom,"  exceedingly 
well  written  for  two-thirds  of  the  way,  falls  down 
hopelessly  at  the  end.  Many  old  Negroes  after 
the  Civil  War  preferred  to  remain  with  their  former 
masters;  but  certainly  no  young  woman  of  the 
type  of  Emmeline  would  sell  her  birthright  for  a 
mess  of  pottage. 

Just  there  is  the  point.  That  the  Negro  is  ever 
to  be  taken  seriously  is  incomprehensible  to  some 
people.  It  is  the  story  of  "The  Man  that  Laughs" 
over  again.  The  more  Gwynplaine  protests,  the 
more  outlandish  he  becomes  to  the  House  of  Lords. 

We  are  simply  asking  that  those  writers  of  fiction 
who  deal  with  the  Negro  shall  be  thoroughly  honest 
with  themselves,  and  not  remain  forever  content 
to  embalm  old  types  and  work  over  outworn  ideas. 
Rather  should  they  sift  the  present  and  forecast 
the  future.  But  of  course  the  editors  must  be  con- 
sidered. The  editors  must  give  then*  readers  what 
the  readers  want;  and  when  we  consider  the  popu- 
lace, of  course  we  have  to  reckon  with  the  mob. 
And  the  mob  does  not  find  anything  very  attractive 
about  a  Negro  who  is  intelligent,  cultured,  manly, 
and  who  does  not  smile.  It  will  be  observed  that 
in  no  one  of  the  ten  stories  above  mentioned, 
not  even  in  one  of  the  five  remarked  most  favor- 
ably, is  there  a  Negro  of  this  type.  Yet  he  is 
obliged  to  come.  America  has  yet  to  reckon  with 


178  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

him.  The  day  of  Uncle  Remus  as  well  as  of  Unole 
Tom  is  over. 

Even  now,  however,  there  are  signs  of  better 
things.  Such  an  artist  as  Mr.  Howells,  for  instance, 
has  once  or  twice  dealt  with  the  problem  in  excellent 
spirit.  Then  there  is  the  work  of  the  Negro  writers 
themselves.  The  numerous  attempts  hi  fiction 
made  by  them  have  most  frequently  been  open  to 
the  charge  of  crossness  already  considered;  but 
Paul  Laurence  Dunbar,  Charles  W.  Chesnutt,  and 
W.  E.  Burghardt  DuBois  have  risen  above  the 
crowd.  Mr.  Dunbar,  of  course,  was  better  in 
poetry  than  in  prose.  Such  a  short  story  as  "Jim- 
sella,"  however,  exhibited  considerable  technique. 
"The  Uncalled"  used  a  living  topic  treated  with 
only  partial  success.  But  for  the  most  part,  Mr. 
Dunbar's  work  looked  toward  the  past.  Somewhat 
stronger  in  prose  is  Mr.  Chesnutt.  "The  Marrow 
of  Tradition"  is  not  much  more  than  a  political 
tract,  and  "The  Colonel's  Dream"  contains  a  good 
deal  of  preaching;  but  "The  House  Behind  the 
Cedars"  is  a  real  novel.  Among  his  short  stories, 
"The  Bouquet"  may  be  remarked  for  technical 
excellence,  and  "The  Wife  of  His  Youth"  for  a 
situation  of  unusual  power.  Dr.  DuBois's  "The 
Quest  of  the  Silver  Fleece"  contains  at  least  one 
strong  dramatic  situation,  that  in  which  Bles 
probes  the  heart  of  Zora;  but  the  author  is  a 
sociologist  and  essayist  rather  than  a  novelist. 
The  grand  epic  of  the  race  is  yet  to  be  produced. 

Some  day  we  shall  work  out  the  problems  of 
our  great  country.  Some  day  we  shall  not  have  a 
state  government  set  at  defiance,  and  the  massacre 


Appendix  179 

of  Ludlow.  Some  day  our  little  children  will  not 
slave  in  mines  and  mills,  but  will  have  some  chance 
at  the  glory  of  God's  creation;  and  some  day  the 
Negro  will  cease  to  be  a  problem  and  become  a 
'human  being.  Then,  in  truth,  we  shall  have  the 
Promised  Land.  But  until  that  day  cornea  let 
those  who  mold  our  ideals  and  set  the  standards 
of  our  art  in  fiction  at  least  be  honest  with  them- 
selves and  independent.  Ignorance  we  may  for  a 
time  forgive;  but  a  man  has  only  himself  to  blame 
if  he  insists  on  not  seeing  the  sunrise  in  the  new 
day. 


8.  STUDY  OF  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

THE  following  bibliography,  while  aiming  at  f 
fair  degree  of  completeness  for  books  and  ar 
tides  coming  within  the  scope  of  this  volume,  can 
not  be  finally  complete,  because  so  to  make  it  would 
be  to  cover  very  largely  the  great  subject  of  the 
Negro  Problem,  only  one  phase  of  which  is  here 
considered.  The  aim  is  constantly  to  restrict  the 
discussion  to  that  of  the  literary  and  artistic  life 
of  the  Negro;  and  books  primarily  on  economic, 
social,  or  theological  themes,  however  interesting 
within  themselves,  are  generally  not  included. 
Booker  T.  Washington  may  seem  to  be  an  excep- 
tion to  this;  but  the  general  importance  of  the 
books  of  this  author  would  seem  to  demand  their 
inclusion,  especially  as  some  of  them  touch  directly 
on  the  subject  of  present  interest. 


BOOKS  BT  SIX  MOST  PROMINENT  AUTHORS 

WHEATLEY,  PHILLIS  (Mrs.  Peters). 
Poem  on  the  Death   of  the   Reverend  George 

Whitefield.    Boston,  1770. 
Poems  on  Various  Subjects,  Religious  and  Moral. 
London  and  Boston,  1773. 

180 


Appendix  181 

Elegy  Sacred  to  the  Memory  of  Dr.  Samuel 
Cooper.  Boston,  1784. 

Liberty  and  Peace.    Boston,  1784. 

Letters,  edited  by  Charles  Deane.  Boston,  1864. 
(Note. — The  bibliography  of  the  work  of 
Phillis  Wheatley  is  now  a  study  within  itself. 
Titles  just  enumerated  are  only  for  what  may 
be  regarded  as  the  most  important  original 
sources.  The  important  volume,  that  of  1773, 
is  now  very  rare  and  valuable.  Numerous 
reprints  have  been  made,  among  them  the 
following:  Philadelphia,  1774;  Philadelphia, 
1786;  Albany,  1793;  Philadelphia,  1801;  Wai- 
pole,  N.  H.,  1802;  Hartford,  1804;  Halifax, 
1813;  "New  England,"  1816;  Denver,  1887; 
Philadelphia,  1909  (the  last  being  the  accessible 
reprint  by  R.  R.  and  C.  C.  Wright,  A.  M.  E. 
Book  Concern).  Note  also  Memoir  of  Phillis 
Wheatley,  by  B.  B.  Thatcher,  Boston,  1834; 
and  Memoir  and  Poems  of  Phillis  Wheatley 
(memoir  by  Margaretta  Matilda  Odell),  Bos- 
ton, 1834,  1835,  and  1838,  the  three  editions 
in  rapid  succession  being  due  to  the  anti- 
slavery  agitation.  Not  the  least  valuable 
part  of  Deane's  1864  edition  of  the  Letters  is 
the  sketch  of  Phillis  Wheatley,  by  Nathaniel 
B.  Shurtleff,  which  it  contains.  This  was  first 
printed  in  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  Dec. 
21,  1863.  It  is  brief,  but  contains  several  facts 
not  to  be  found  elsewhere.  Duyckinck's 
Cyclopjedia  of  American  Literature  (1855  and 
1866)  gave  a  good  review  and  reprinted  from 
the  Pennsylvania  Magazine  the  correspondence 


182  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

with  Washington,  and  the  poem  to  Washington, 
also  "Liberty  and  Peace."  Also  important 
for  reference  is  Oscar  Wegelin's  Compilation 
of  the  Titles  of  Volumes  of  Verse — Early  Amer- 
ican Poetry,  New  York,  1903.  Note  also  The 
Life  and  Works  of  Phillis  Wheatley,  by  G. 
Herbert  Renfro,  edited  by  Leila  Amos  Pendle- 
ton,  Washington,  1916.  The  whole  matter  of 
bibliography  has  recently  been  exhaustively 
studied  in  Heartman's  Historical  Series,  in  beau- 
tiful books  of  limited  editions,  as  follows:  (1) 
Phillis  Wheatley:  A  Critical  Attempt  and  a 
Bibliography  of  Her  Writings,  by  Charles  Fred 
Heartman,  New  York,  1915;  (2)  Phillis  Wheat- 
ley:  Poems  and  Letters.  First  Collected  Edi- 
tion. Edited  by  Charles  Fred  Heartman,  with 
an  Appreciation  by  Arthur  A.  Schomburg,  New 
York,  1915;  (3)  Six  Broadsides  relating  to  Phillis 
Wheatley,  New  York,  1915.  These  books  are 
of  the  first  order  of  importance,  and  yet  they 
awaken  one  or  two  questions.  One  wonders  why 
"To  Maecenas,"  "On  Virtue,"  and  "On  Being 
Brought  from  Africa  to  America,"  all  very  early 
work,  were  placed  near  the  end  of  the  poems  in 
"Poems  and  Letters";  nor  is  the  relation  be- 
tween "To  a  Clergyman  on  the  Death  of  His 
Lady,"  and  "To  the  Rev.  Mr.  Pitkin  on  the 
Death  of  His  Lady,"  made  clear,  the  two  poems, 
evidently  different  versions  of  the  same  subject, 
being  placed  pages  apart.  The  great  merit  of 
the  book,  however,  is  that  it  adds  to  "Poems 
on  Various  Subjects"  the  four  other  poems  not 
generally  accessible:  (1)  To  His  Excellency, 


Appendix  183 

George  Washington;  (2)  On  Major-General 
Lee;  (3)  Liberty  and  Peace;  (4)  An  Elegy 
Sacred  to  the  Memory  of  Dr.  Samuel  Cooper. 
The  first  of  Heartman's  three  volumes  gives 
a  list  of  books  containing  matter  on  Phillis 
Wheatley.  To  this  may  now  be  added  the 
following  magazine  articles,  none  of  which 
contain  matter  primarily  original:  (1)  Christian 
Examiner,  Vol.  XVI,  p.  169  (Review  by  W.  J. 
Snelling  of  the  1834  edition  of  the  poems); 
(2)  Knickerbocker,  Vol.  IV,  p.  85;  (3)  North 
American  Review,  Vol.  68,  p.  418  (by  Mrs.  E. 
F.  Ellet);  (4)  London  Athenceum  for  1835, 
p.  819  (by  Rev.  T.  Flint);  (5)  Historical 
Magazine  for  1858,  p.  178;  (6)  Catholic  World, 
Vol.  39,  p.  484,  July,  1884;  (7)  Chautauguan, 
Vol.  18,  p.  599,  February,  1894  (by  Pamela 
Me  Arthur  Cole). 

DUNBAB,  PAUL  LAURENCE. 
Life  and  Works,  edited  by  Lida  Keck  Wiggins. 

J.  L.  Nichols  &  Co.,  Naperville,  111.,  1907. 
The  following,  with  the  exception  of  the 

sketch  at  the  end,  were  all  published  by  Dodd, 

Mead  &  Co.,  New  York. 
Poems: 

Lyrics  of  Lowly  Life,  1896. 

Lyrics  of  the  Hearthside,  1899. 

Lyrics  of  Love  and  Laughter,  1903. 

Lyrics  of  Sunshine  and  Shadow,  1905. 

Complete  Poems,  1913. 
Specially  Illustrated  Volumes  of  Poems: 

Poems  of  Cabin  and  Field,  1899. 


184    The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Candle-Lightin'  Time,  1901. 

When  Malindy  Sings,  1903. 

LiT  Gal,  1904. 

Howdy,  Honey,  Howdy,  1905. 

Joggin'  Erlong,  1906. 

Speakin'  o'  Christmas,  1914. 
Novels: 

The  Uncalled,  1896. 

The  Love  of  Landry,  1900. 

The  Fanatics,  1901. 

The  Sport  of  the  Gods,  1902. 
Stories  and  Sketches: 

Folks  from  Dixie,  1898. 

The  Strength  of  Gideon,  and  Other  Stories,  1900. 

In  Old  Plantation  Days,  1903. 

The  Heart  of  Happy  Hollow,  1904. 

Uncle   Eph's   Christmas,    a   one-act   musical 
sketch,  Washington,  1900. 

CHEBNUTT,  CHARLES  WADDELL. 
Frederick  Douglass:  A  Biography.    Small,  May- 

nard  &  Co.,  Boston,  1899. 
The  Conjure  Woman  (stories).    Houghton  Mifflin 

Co.,  Boston,  1899. 
The  Wife  of  His  Youth,  and  Other  Stories  of 

the  Color-line.    Houghton  Mifflin  Co.,  Boston, 

1899. 
The  House  Behind  the  Cedars  (novel) .    Houghton 

Mifflin  Co.,  Boston,  1900. 
*  The  Marrow  of  Tradition  (novel).     Houghton 

Mifflin  Co.,  Boston,  1901.  • 
The  Colonel's  Dream  (novel).    Doubleday,  Page 

&  Co.,  New  York,  1905. 


Appendix 

DuBois,  WILLIAM  EDWARD  BUROHARDT. 

Suppression  of  the  African  Slave-Trade.  Long- 
mans, Green  &  Co.,  New  York,  1896  (now 
handled  through  Harvard  University  Press, 
Cambridge). 

The  Philadelphia  Negro.  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Philadelphia,  1899. 

The  Souls  of  Black  Folk:  Essays  and  Sketches. 
A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co.,  Chicago,  1903. 

The  Negro  in  the  South  (with  Booker  T. 
Washington).  Geo.  W.  Jacobs  &  Co.,  Phila- 
delphia, 1907. 

John  Brown  (in  American  Crisis  Biographies). 
Geo.  W.  Jacobs  &  Co.,  Philadelphia,  1909. 

The  Quest  of  the  Silver  Fleece  (novel).  A.  C. 
McClurg  &  Co.,  Chicago,  1911. 

The  Negro  (hi  Home  University  Library  Series). 
Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  New  York,  1915. 

BRAITHWAITE,  WILLIAM  STANLEY. 
Lyrics  of  Life  and  Love.    H.  B.  Turner  &  Co., 

Boston,  1904. 
The  House  of  Falling  Leaves  (poems).    J.  W. 

Luce  &  Co.,  Boston,  1908. 
The   Book   of   Elizabethan   Verse    (anthology). 

H.  B.  Turner  &  Co.,  Boston,  1906. 
The  Book  of  Georgian  Verse  (anthology).    Bren- 

tano's,  New  York,  1908. 
The   Book   of   Restoration   Verse    (anthology). 

Brentano's,  New  York,  1909. 
Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse  for  1913  (including 

the    Magazines    and    the    Poets,    a   review). 

Cambridge,  Mass.,  1913. 


186  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse  for  1014.  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  1914, 

Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse  for  1915.  Gomme 
&  Marshall,  New  York,  1915. 

Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse  for  1916.  Laurence 
J.  Gomme,  New  Yirk,  1916. 

The  Poetic  Year  (for  1916) :  A  Critical  Anthology. 
Small,  Maynard  &  Co.,  Boston,  1917. 

Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse  for  1917.  Small, 
Maynard  &  Co.,  Boston. 

Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  in  "Contemporary 
American  Poets ,  Series,"  announced  for  early 
publication  by  the  Poetry  Review  Co.,  Cam- 
bridge, Mass. 

WASHINGTON,  BOOKER  TALIAPEBRO. 

The  Future  of  the  American  Negro.  Small, 
Maynard  &  Co.,  Boston,  1899. 

The  Story  of  My  Life  and  Work.  Nichols  & 
Co.,  Naperville,  111.,  1900. 

Up  from  Slavery:  An  Autobiography.  Double- 
day,  Page  &  Co.,  New  York,  1901. 

Character  Building.  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co., 
New  York,  1902. 

Working  With  the  Hands.  Doubleday,  Page  & 
Co.,  New  York,  1904. 

Putting  the  Most  Into  Life.  Crowell  &  Co.,  New 
York,  1906. 

Frederick  Douglass  (in  American  Crisis  Biogra- 
phies). Geo.  W.  Jacobs  &  Co.,  Philadelphia, 
1906. 

The  Negro  in  the  South  (with  W.  E.  B.  DuBois). 
Geo.  W.  Jacobs  &  Co.,  Philadelphia,  1907. 


Appendix  187 

The  Negro  in  Business.    Hertel,  Jenkins  <fe  Co., 

Chicago,  1907. 
The  Story  of  the  Negro.     Doubleday,  Page  A 

Co.,  New  York,  1909. 
My  Larger  Education.    Doubleday,  Page  &  Co., 

Garden  City,  N.  Y.,  1911. 
The  Man  Farthest  Down  (with  Robert  Emory 

Park).    Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  Garden  City, 

N.  Y.,  1912. 

II 

ORIGINAL  WORKS  BY  OTHER  AUTHORS 

BROWN,  WILLIAM  WELLS:  Clotelle:  A  Tale  of  the 
Southern  States.  Redpath,  Boston,  1864  (first 
printed  London,  1853). 

CARMICHAEL,  WAVERLEY  TURNER:  From  the  Heart 
of  a  Folk,  and  Other  Poems.  The  Cornhill  Co., 
Boston,  1917. 

DOUGLASS,  FREDERICK:  Life  and  Times  of  Frederick 
Douglass.  Park  Publishing  Co.,  Hartford,  Conn., 
1881  (note  also  "Narrative  of  Life,"  Boston, 
1846;  and  "My  Bondage  and  My  Freedom," 
Miller,  New  York,  1855). 

DUNBAR,  ALICE  MOORE  (Mrs.  Nelson) :   The  Good- 
ness of  St.   Rocque,  and  Other  Stories.     Dodd, 
Mead  &  Co.,  New  York,  1899. 
Masterpieces    of    Negro    Eloquence    (edited). 
The  Bookery  Publishing  Co.,  New  York,  1914. 

HARPER,  FRANCES  ELLEN  WATKINS:  Poems  on 
Miscellaneous  Subjects.  Boston,  1854,  1856; 
also  Merrihew  &  Son,  Philadelphia,  1857,  1866 
(second  series),  1871. 


188   The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

Moses:  ]A  Story  of  the  Nile.    Merrihew  &  Son, 

Philadelphia,  1869. 
Sketches  of  Southern  Life.    Merrihew  &  Son, 

Philadelphia,  1872. 

HORTON,  GEORGE  MOSES:  The  Hope  of  Liberty. 
Gales  &  Son,  Raleigh,  N.  C.,  1829  (note  also 
"Poems  by  a  Slave,"  bound  with  Poems  of 
Phillis  Wheatley,  Boston,  1838). 
JOHNSON,  GEORGIA  DOUGLAS:  The  Heart  of  a 
Woman,  and  Other  Poems.  The  Cornhili  Co., 
Boston,  1917. 

JOHNSON,  FENTON:  A  Little  Dreaming.    Peterson 
Linotyping  Co.,  Chicago,  1913. 
Visions  of  the  Dusk.    Trachlenburg  Co.,  New 

York,  1915. 
Songs  of  the  Soil.     Trachlenburg  Co.,  New 

York,  1916. 

JOHNSON,  JAMES  W.:    Autobiography  of  an  Ex- 
Colored  Man   (published  anonymously).     Sher- 
man, French  &  Co.,  Boston,  1912. 
Fifty  Years  and  Other  Poems,  with  an  Intro- 
duction by  Brander  Matthews.    The  Corn- 
hill  Co.,  Boston,  1917. 

MARGETSON,  GEORGE  REGINALD:    The  Fledgling 
Bard  and  the  Poetry  Society.    R.  G.  Badger, 
Boston,  1916. 
McGiRT,  James  E. :  For  Your  Sweet  Sake.    John  C. 

Winston  Co.,  Philadelphia,  1909. 
MILLER,  KELLY:    Race  Adjustment.     The  Neale 
Publishing  Co.,  New  York  and  Washington,  1908. 
Out  of  the  House  of  Bondage.     The  Neale 
Publishing  Co.,  New  York  and  Washington, 
1914. 


Appendix  189 

WHITMAN,  ALBERT  A.:  Not  a  Man  and  Yet  a 
Man.  Springfield,  Ohio,  1877. 

Twasinta's  Serainoles,  or  The  Rape  of  Florida. 
Nixon-Jones  Printing  Co.,  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  1884. 

Drifted  Leaves.  Nixon-Jones  Printing  Co., 
St.  Louis,  1890  (this  being  a  collection  of 
two  former  works  with  miscellanies). 

An  Idyl  of  the  South,  an  epic  poem  in  two 
parts  (Part  I,  The  Octoroon;  Part  II,  The 
Southland's  Charms  and  Freedom's  Magni- 
tude) .  The  Metaphysical  Publishing  Co.,  New 
York,  1901. 

Ill 

BOOKS   DEALING   IN   SOME   MEASURE   WITH   THE   LIT- 
ERARY  AND   ARTISTIC   LIFE   OF  THE   NEGRO 

BROWN,  WILLIAM  WELLS:  The  Black  Man,  His 
Antecedents,  His  Genius,  and  His  Achievements. 
Hamilton,  New  York,  1863. 

CHILD,  LYDIA  MARIA:  The  Freedman's  Book. 
Ticknor  &  Fields,  Boston,  1865. 

CROMWELL,  JOHN  W.:  The  Negro  in  American 
History.  The  American  Negro  Academy,  Wash- 
ington, 1914. 

GULP,  D.  W.:  Twentieth  Century  Negro  Literature. 
J.  L.  Nichols  &  Co.,  Naperville,  111.,  1902. 

ELLIS,  GEORGE  W. :  Negro  Culture  in  West  Africa. 
The  Neale  Publishing  Co.,  New  York,  1914. 

FENNER,  THOMAS  P.:  Religious  Folk-Songs  of  the 
Negro  (new  edition).  The  Institute  Press,  Hamp- 
ton, Va.,  1909. 


190   The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

GREGORY,  JAMES  M.:  Frederick  Douglass  the 
Orator.  Willey  &  Son,  Springfield,  Mass.,  1893 
(note  also  "In  Memoriam:  Frederick  Douglass," 
John  C.  Yoreton  &  Co.,  Philadelphia,  1897). 

HATCHER,  WILLIAM  E.:  John  Jasper.  Fleming  H. 
Revell  Co.,  New  York,  1908. 

HOLLAND,  FREDERIC  MAT:  Frederick  Douglass,  the 
Colored  Orator.  Funk  &  Wagnalls,  New  Yorkt 
1891  (rev.  1895). 

HUBBARD,  ELBERT:  Booker  Washington  in  "Little 
Journeys  to  the  Homes  of  Great  Teachers." 
The  Roycrofters,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y.,  1908. 

KREHBIEL,  HENRY  E.:  Afro-American  Folk-Songs. 
G.  Schirmer,  New  York  &  London,  1914. 

PIKE,  G.  D.:  The  Jubilee  Singers.  Lee  &  Shepard, 
Boston,  1873. 

RILEY,  BENJAMIN  F. :  The  Life  and  Times  of  Booker 
T.  Washington.  Fleming  H.  Revell  Co.,  New 
York,  1916. 

SAYERS,  W.  C.  BERWICK:  Samuel  Coleridge-Taylor: 
Musician;  His  Life  and  Letters.  CasseU  &  Co., 
London  and  New  York,  1915. 

SCHOMBURG,  ARTHUR  A. :  A  Bibliographical  Check- 
list of  American  Negro  Poetry.  New  York,  1916. 

SCOTT,  EMMETT  J.,  and  STOWE,  LYMAN  BEECHER: 
Booker  T.  Washington,  Builder  of  a  Civilization. 
Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  Garden  City,  N.  Y.  1916 
(note  also  Memorial  Addresses  of  Dr.  Booker  T. 
Washington  in  Occasional  Papers  of  the  John 
F.  Slater  Fund,  1916). 

SIMMONS,  WILLIAM  J.:  Men  of  Mark.  Geo.  M. 
Rewell  &  Co.,  Cleveland,  Ohio,  1887. 


Appendix  191 

TROTTER,   JAMES  M.:    Music  and  Some  Highly 

Musical  People.    Boston,  1878. 
WILLIAMS,  GEORGE  W.,  History  of  the  Negro  Race 

in  America  from  1619  to  1880.    2  vols.    G.  P. 

Putnam's  Sons.    New  York  and  London,  1915. 


IV 

SELECT  LIST  OF  THIRTY-SIX   MAGAZINE  ARTICLES 

(The  arrangement  is  chronological,  and  articles  of 
unusual  scholarship  or  interest  are  marked  *.) 

*  Negro  Spirituals,  by  Thomas  Wentworth  Higgin- 
son.    Atlantic,  Vol.  19,  p.  685  (June,  1867) 

Plantation  Music,  by  Joel  Chandler  Harris.  Critic, 
Vol.  3,  p.  505  (December  15,  1883). 

*  The  Negro  on  the  Stage,  by  Laurence  Hutton. 
Harper's,  Vol.  79,  p.  131  (June,  1889). 

Old  Plantation  Hymns,  Hymns  of  the  Slave  and 
the  Freedman,  Recent  Negro  Melodies:  a  series 
of  three  articles  by  William  E.  Barton.  New 
England  Magazine,  Vol.  19,  pp.  443,  609,  707 
(December,  1898,  January  and  February,  1899). 

Mr.  Charles  W.  Chesnutt's  Stories,  by  W.  D. 
Howells,  Atlantic,  Vol.  85,  p.  70  (May,  1900). 

The  American  Negro  at  Paris,  by  W.  E.  Burghardt 
DuBois.  Review  of  Reviews,  Vol.  22,  p.  575 
(November,  1900). 

Sojourner  Truth,  by  Lillie  Chace  Wyman.  New 
England  Magazine,  Vol.  24,  p.  59  (March,  1901). 

A  New  Element  in  Fiction,  by  Elizabeth  L.  Gary. 
Book  Buyer,  Vol.  23,  p.  26  (August,  1901). 


192  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

The  True  Negro  Music  and  its  Decline,  by  Jean- 

nette  Robinson  Murphy.    Independent,  Vol.  65, 

p.  1723  (July  23,  1903). 
Biographia — Afrioana,   by  Daniel  Murray.     Voice 

of  the  Negro,  Vol.  1,  p.  186  (May,  1904).1 
Samuel  Coleridge-Taylor,  by  William  V.  Tunnell. 

Colored  American  Magazine  (New  York),  Vol.  8, 

p.  43  (January,  1905). 
The  Negro  of  To-Day  in  Music,  by  James  W. 

Johnson.    Chanties,  Vol.  15,  p.  58  (October  7, 

1905). 
William  A.  Harper,  by  Florence  L.  Bentley.    Voice 

of  the  Negro,  Vol.  3,  p.  117  (February,  1906). 
Paul  Laurence  Dunbar,  by  Mary  Church  Terrell. 

Voice  of  the  Negro,  Vol.  3,  p.  271  (April,  1906). 
Dunbar's  Best  Book.     Bookman,  Vol.  23,  p.   122 

(April,   1906).     Tribute  by  W.  D.  Howells  in 

same  issue,  p.  185. 
Chief  Singer  of  the  Negro  Race.   Current  Literature, 

Vol.  40,  p.  400  (April,  1906). 
Meta  Warrick,  Sculptor  of  Horrors,  by  William 

Francis  O'Donnell.    World  To-Day,  Vol.  13,  p. 

1139  (November,  1907).    See  also  Current  Liter- 
ature, Vol.  44,  p.  55  (January,  1908). 
Afro-American  Painter  Who  Has  Become  Famous 

in  Paris.     Current  Literature,   Vol.   45,  p.  404 

(October,  1908). 
*The  Story  of  an  Artist's  Life,  by  H.  O.  Tanner. 

World's  Work,  Vol.  18,  pp.  11661,  11769  (June 

and  July,  1909). 
Indian  and  Negro  in  Music.    Literary  Digest,  Vol. 

44,  p.  1346  (June  29,  1912). 
The  Higher  Music  of  Negroes  (mainly  on  Coleridge- 


Appendix  193* 

Taylor).   Literary  Digest,  Vol.  45,  p.  565  (October 

5,  1912). 
*  The  Negro's  Contribution  to  the  Music  of  America, 

by  Natalie  Curtis.    Craftsman,  Vol.  23,  p.  660 

(March,  1913). 
Legitimizing  the  Music  of  the  Negro.     Current 

Opinion,  Vol.  54,  p.  384  (May,  1913). 
The  Soul  of  the  Black  (Herbert  Ward's  Bronzes). 

Independent,  Vol.  74,  p.  994  (May  1,  1913). 
A  Poet  Painter  of  Palestine  (H.  O.  Tanner),  by 

Clara  T.  MacChesney.    International  Studio  (July, 

1913). 
The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art,  by  W.  E.  Burg- 

hardt  DuBois.    Annals  of  the  American  Academy 

of  Political  and  Social  Science,  Vol.  49,  p.  233 

(September,  1913). 
Afro-American    Folksongs    (review    of    book    by 

Henry  Edward  Krehbiel).     Nation,  Vol.  98,  p. 

311  (March  19,  1914). 
Negro  Music  in  the  Land  of  Freedom,  and  The 

Promise  of  Negro  Music.    Outlook,  Vol.  106,  p. 

611  (March  21,  1914). 
Beginnings  of  a  Negro  Drama.     Literary  Digest, 

Vol.  48,  p.  1114  (May  9,  1914). 
George  Moses  Horton:  Slave  Poet,  by  Stephen  B. 

Weeks.     Southern   Workman,   Vol.   43,   p.   571 

(October,  1914). 
The  Rise  and  Fall  of  Negro  Minstrelsy,  by  Brander 

Matthews.     Scribner's,  Vol.  57,  p.  754  (June. 

1915). 
The  Negro  in  the  Southern  Short  Story,  by  H.  E. 

Rollins.    Sewanee  Review,  Vol.  24,  p.  42  (Janu- 
ary, 1916). 


194    The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art 

H.  T.  Burleigh:  Composer  by  Divine  Right,  and  the 
American  Coleridge-Taylor.  Musical  America, 
Vol.  23,  No.  26  (April  29,  1916).  (Note  also  An 
American  Negro  Whose  Music  Stirs  the  Blood 
of  Warring  Italy.  Current  Opinion,  August,  1916, 
p.  100.) 

The  Drama  Among  Black  Folk,  by  W.  E.  B.  Du- 
Bois.  Crisis,  Vol.  12,  p.  169  (August,  1916). 

Afro-American  Folk-Song  Contribution,  by  Maud 
Cuney  Hare.  Musical  Observer,  Vol.  15.  No.  2, 
p.  13  (February,  1917). 

After  the  Play  (criticism  of  recent  plays  by  Ridgely 
Torrence),  by  "F.  H."  New  Republic,  Vol.  10, 
p.  325  (AprU  14,  1917). 


THE  END 


INDEX 


Aldridge,  Ira,  98. 
Anderson,  Marian,  153. 

B 

Bannister,  E.  M.,  103. 

Batson,  Flora,  137. 

Bethune,  Thomas,  135-136. 

Braithwaite,   William   Stan- 
ley, 56-64,  143,  144. 

Brawley,  E.  M.,  70. 

Brown,  Anita  Patti,  138. 

Brown,  Richard  L.,  104. 

Brown,  William   Wells,   66, 
69,  70,  72. 

Browne,  B.  T.,  147. 

Burleigh,  Harry  T..  80,  130- 
131,  138,  151. 

Burrill,  Mary,  146. 

Bush,  William  Herbert,  134. 

Byron,    May  me    Galloway. 
138-139. 

0 

Charlton,  Melville,  134,  151. 
Chesnutt,  Charles  W.,  45-49, 

89,  178. 

Guilders,  Lulu  Vere,  140. 
Clough,  Inez,  101. 
Cohen,  Octavus  Roy,  148. 
Cole,  Bob,  99. 
Coleridge  -  Taylor,  Samuel, 

125-129. 

Collins.Cleota  J.,  153. 
Cook,  Will  Marion,  131. 
Cooper,  Opal,  100. 
Cotter,  Joseph  8.,  Jr.,  145. 
Cromwell,  J.  W.,  71. 
CrummelJ,  Alexander,  66. 


Dede,  Edmund,  129-130. 
Dett,  B.  Nathaniel,  132,  151. 
Diton,  Carl,  132,  152. 
Douglass,   Frederick,   4,   34, 

68,  86,  88-91,  95-96. 
Douglass,  Joseph,  135. 
Du  Bois,  W.  E.  Burghardt, 

4,  50-55,  65,  68,  70,  143. 

178. 
Dunbar,   Alice   Ruth   Moore 

(Mrs.  Nelson),  36,  71,  86, 

146. 
Dunbar,   Paul   Laurence,   4, 

33-44,  79,  101,  128,  178. 

E 

Elliott,  Robert  B.,  85. 
Ellis,  George  W.,  67. 

P 

Ferris,  William  H.,  67. 
Freeman,  H.  Laurence,  153. 
Fuller,   Meta   Warrick,   4, 
112-124,  150. 

O 

Games,  Antoinette  Smythe, 

153. 

Garnet,  Henry  H.,  66. 
Gilpin,  Charles  8.,  149,  156- 

162. 
Greenfield,  Elizabeth  Taylor, 

136-137. 

Grimk6,  Angelina  W.,  146. 
Grimke',  Archibald  H.,  66, 

67. 


195 


196 


Index 


H 

Hackley,  E.  Azalia,  140. 

Hagan,  Helen,  134. 

Hare.  Maud  Cuney,  69,  141, 

147,  152. 

H  rleston,  Edwin  A.,  104. 
Harper.  Frances  E.  W.,  75- 

76. 

Harper,  William  A.,  103-104. 
Harreld,  Kemper,  135. 
Harrison,  Hazel,  133. 
Hayes,  W.  Roland,  138,  153. 
Henson,  Josiah,  68. 
Henson,  Matthew,  69. 
Hill,  Leslie  Pickncy.  146. 
Hogan,  Ernest,  99. 
Horton,  George  M.,  73-75. 
Hyers,  Anna  and  Emma,  137. 


Lee,  Bertina,  113. 
Lewis,  Edmonia,  112-113. 
Locke,  Alain,  72. 
Lynch,  John  H.,  71. 

M 

Martin,  Qeorge  Madden,  148. 
Mason,  M.  C.  B.,  85. 
McKay,  Claude,  144-146. 
Means,  E.  K,  148. 
Miller,  Kelly,  66-67. 
Moorhead,  Bcipio,  103. 
Moton,  Robert  Russa,  144. 
Murray,    Frederick    H.    M., 
150. 

N 
Nell,  William  C.,  70. 


Jackson,  May  Howard,  113, 
150. 

Jamison,  Roscoe  C.,  145. 

Jasper,  John,  84-85.  . 

Jenkins,  Edmund  T.,  132- 
133. 

Johnson,  Charles  B.,  145. 

Johnson,  Mrs.  Georgia  Doug- 
las, 146. 

Johnson,  James  W.,  79-82, 
130. 

Johnson,  J.  Rosamond,  80, 
131-132,  152. 

Johnson,  Noble  M.,  149. 

Jones,  Sissieretta,  138. 


Lambert,  Lucien,  129. 
Lambert,  Richard,  129. 
Langston,  John  M.,  69,  85. 
Lawson,  Raymond  Augustus, 
133. 


O'Neill,  Eugene,  159. 
Ovington,  Mary  White,  148. 


Payne,  Daniel  A.,  69. 
Price,  J.  C.,  86. 
Prichard,  Myron  T.,  155. 

R 

Ranson,  Reverdy  C.,   86-87. 
Richardson,  Ethel,  134. 
Richardson,  William  H.,  141, 
152. 

8 

Scarborough,  William  8.,  66. 
8cott,  Dr.  Emmett  J.,  144, 

147. 
Scott,  William  E.,  104-105, 

150. 

Sejour,  Victor,  129. 
Selika,  Mme.,  137. 


Index 


197 


Simmons,  William  J.,  69. 
Sinclair,  William  A,,  67. 
Stafford,  A.  O.,  72. 
Steward,  T.  G.,  71. 
Still,  William,  70. 


Talbert,  Florence  Cole,  153- 

154. 
Tanner,   Henry   O.,  4,   105- 

111,  150. 

Tibbs,  Boy  W.,  134. 
Tinsley,  Pedro  T.,  140. 
Trotter,  James  M.,  69. 
Truth,  Sojourner,  69,  84. 
Tubinan,  Harriet,  83. 

W 

Walker,  Charlea  T.,  85. 
Walker,  David,  66. 


Warberry,  Eugene,  129. 

Ward,  Samuel  Ringgold,  68. 

Washington,    Booker    T.,    4. 
54,  65,  68,  69,  88,  92-96. 

Watkins,  Lucian  B.,  145. 

Weir,  Felix,  135. 

Wheatley,  Phillis  (Mrs.  Pe- 
ters), 10-32,  73,  75,  103. 

White,   Clarence   Cameron, 
135,  152. 

White,    Frederick    P.,    134, 
135. 

Whitman,  Albery  A.,  76-79. 

Williams,  Bert,  99. 

Williams,  E.  C.,  101. 

Williams,  George  W.,  70. 

Wilson,  Edward  E.,  72. 

Woodson,  Carter  G.,  71. 

Work,  John  W.,  140. 

Wright,   Edward   Sterling, 
101. 


University  of  California  Library 
Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


iione 
310/82 

OCl  ui  ZSJUJ 
RECD  JAN  2  ] 

5 


Risnewass 


REC'DYRL -."."!  1 
*mMAY27Z005 


5-9188 

2004 


22005 


